Political Science Quarterly 1917-03: Vol 32 Iss 1

Volume XXXII| March, 1917 [Mumber 1

POLITICAL SCIENCE
QUARTERLY

THE BRITISH LABOR MOVEMENT AND THE WAR*

HE labor movement in Britain is organized in three
great federations: the Trade-Union Congress, the Gen-
eral Federation of Trade Unions, and the Labor Party.

The Trade-Union Congress has a membership of close upon
3,000,000 trade unionists, and concerns itself with all the poli-
tical and industrial questions by which they are affected. The
General Federation of Trade Unions has a membership of
1,076,634. Its functions are mainly financial, and take the
form of providing a proportion of funds in trade disputes.
The Labor Party is a federation of trade unions, trades coun-
cils, local labor parties, socialist societies and co-operative
societies. There were affiliated with the party in 1915, III
trade unions with a membership of 2,053,735, 177 trades coun-
cils and local labor parties, the Independent Labor Party
(socialist), with a membership of 30,000, the Fabian Society
(socialist), with a membership of 2838, the Women’s Labor
League, with a membership of 5000, and a small co-operative
society. The total membership was 2,093,365. The business
of the Labor Party is, of course, to further by parliamentary
action the interests of the working class in every possible di-

1 The sources consulted in the preparation of this article include: Labor in
War-Time, by G. D. H. Cole, (London, G. Bell and Sons); International
Socialism and the War, by A. W. Humphrey, (London, P. S. King and Son) ;
Forty-seventh Annual Report of the Trade-Union Congress; Report of the
Fifteenth Annual Conference of the Labor Party; Report of the Seventeenth
Annual General Council Meeting of the General Federation of Trade Unions;
The American Federationist, November 1915; The New Statesman, November
13, 20, 27, and December 18, 1915; Fabian News, September 1916; The Call,
July 27, 1916; files of The Labor Leader and Justice; other newspapers.

I

2 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (VoL. XXXII

rection. Common action by these three bodies is taken through
the medium of the Joint Board, which consists of representa-
tives of the parliamentary committee, 7. e., the Executive, of
the Trade-Union Congress, the Management Committee of the
General Federation of Trade Unions and the National Execu-
tive of the Labor Party.* Here it is important to note how
similar are the constituent parts of these three branches of the
British movement. The Congress, the Federation, and the
Labor Party have not a membership separate and distinct from
one another. As a matter of fact, the three bodies overlap to
such an extent that it has been well said that the Joint Board
is not the single head of three bodies, but rather the combined
three heads of one body. Mention must be made of one other
organization—the British Socialist Party. This body became
attached to the Labor Party only in January 1916, when it
affiliated on a basis of 10,000 members. Until then, it had
maintained a rigid independence of all other parties. The
British movement is connected with the international move-
ment through the Labor Party and the General Federation of
Trade Unions. Representatives from the various sections of
the Labor Party constitute the British section of the Interna-
tional Socialist Bureau, and the General Federation is the
British branch of the International Federation of Trade
Unions.

The organized socialists in Great Britain number only
50,000, and until the affiliation of the British Socialist Party
(B. S. P.), the socialists attached to the Labor Party as social-
ists were fewer than 33,000 in number. The influence of the
chief socialist body, the Independent Labor Party (I. L. P.),
has, however, always been much greater than its numbers would
indicate. Its members have usually held the most important
offices in the Labor Party and have been the dominant parlia-
mentary leaders of that body. The labor movement as a whole,
however, cannot be said to have a philosophy of its own, and

1It is important to note the distinction between the National Executive of
the Labor Party and the Parliamentary Labor Party. The former is composed

of representatives of the various sections; the latter consists of the labor mem-
bers of Parliament, who at present number thirty-five.

No. 1] BRITISH LABOR MOVEMENT AND THE WAR 3

its lack of a theoretical foundation is perhaps partly responsi-
ble for the policy of drift which it has pursued during the war.

The first pronouncement from the movement concerning
the war was the following resolution of the Executive of the
B. S. P., passed on July 28:

The British Socialist Party joins with its comrades throughout the
civilized world in denouncing the provocative note of Austria-Hun-
gary to Servia before full enquiry was made as to the responsibility
for the Serajevo assassinations. It heartily congratulates the Social
Democrats of Berlin, Vienna, Paris and other centers on their vigor-
ous efforts to prevent the outbreak of war, and pledges its members
to do their utmost to support similar pacifist efforts in Great Britain.

Two days later the Parliamentary Labor Party expressed
itself as follows:

That the Labor Party is gratified that Sir Edward Grey has taken
steps to secure mediation in the dispute between Austria and Servia,
and regrets that his proposal has not been accepted by the powers
concerned ; it hopes, however, that on no account will this country be
dragged into the European conflict, in which, as the Prime Minister
has stated, we have no direct interest, and the party calls upon all
labor organizations to watch events vigilantly so as to oppose, if need
be, in the most effective way, any action which may involve us in war.

On July 29 there was a meeting of the International Social-
ist Bureau at Brussels. The representatives assembled agreed
that the workers of Germany and France should bring all pos-
sible pressure to bear on their governments to get them to re-
strain Austria and Russia, and that the workers of Great
Britain and Italy should “sustain these efforts with all the
power at their command.” The British section accordingly
issued a manifesto signed by the late Mr. Keir Hardie and Mr.
Arthur Henderson, M. P., as chairman and secretary respec-
tively. The following extract gives its tenor:

Whatever may be the rights and wrongs of this sudden, crushing
attack made by the militarist empire of Austria upon Servia, it is
certain that the workers of all countries likely to be drawn into the
conflict must strain every nerve to prevent their governments from

4 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

committing them to war. Everywhere, socialists and the organized
forces of labor are taking this course.

We call upon you to do the same. Hold vast demonstrations against
war in every industrial center. Compel those of the governing class
and their press, who are eager to commit you to co-operate with Rus-
sian despotism, to keep silent and respect the decision of the over-
whelming majority of the people, who will have neither part nor lot
in such infamy. The success of Russia at the present day would be
a curse to the world.

There is no time to lose! Already, by secret agreements and un-
derstandings, of which the democracies of the civilized world know
only by rumor, steps are being taken which may fling us all into the
fray.

Workers! stand together therefore for peace. Combine and con-
quer the militarist enemy and the self-seeking imperialists today once
for all.

There was no time for a widespread agitation, but a con-
siderable demonstration against war was held in Trafalgar
Square on Sunday, August 2. All sections of the labor and
socialist movement were represented, and a resolution was en-
acted of which the following are the essential passages :

This demonstration, representing the organized workers and citi-
zens of London, views with serious alarm the prospect of a European
war, into which every European power will be dragged owing to
secret alliances and understandings which in their origin were never
sanctioned by the nations nor are, even now, communicated to
them.

We protest against any step being taken by the government of this
country to support Russia, either directly or in consequence of any
understanding with France, as being not only offensive to the polit-
ical traditions of the country, but disastrous to Europe, and declare
that, as we have no interest, direct or indirect, in the threatened
quarrels which may result from the action of Austria in Servia, the
government of Great Britain should rigidly decline to engage in
war, but should confine itself to efforts to bring about peace as
speedily as possible.

On August 3, Sir Edward Grey made his momentous speech
in the House of Commons, announcing the promise given to the

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No. 1] BRITISH LABOR MOVEMENT AND THE WAR 5

French government the day previous, that if the German fleet
should attack the French coast, the British fleet would “ give
all the protection in its power.’’ During the debate, Mr.
Ramsay MacDonald, speaking as chairman of the Labor Party,
declared in favor of Britain’s neutrality, saying:

I think Sir Edward Grey is wrong. I think the government which
he represents and for which he speaks is wrong. I think the verdict
of history wiil be that they are wrong. . . . There has been no
crime committed by statesmen of this character without those states-
men appealing to their nation’s honor. We fought the Crimean War
because of our honor. We rushed to South Africa because of our
honor. The right honorable gentleman is appealing to us today be-
cause of our honor. . . . So far as we are concerned, whatever
may happen, whatever may be said about us, whatever attacks may be
made upon us, we will say that this country ought to have remained
neutral, because in the deepest part of our hearts we believe that is
right, and that alone is consistent with the honor of the country.

The next day Britain was at war. The National Executive
of the Labor Party, on August 5, passed the following resolu-
tion, which was subsequently endorsed at a joint meeting of
the Executive and the Parliamentary Party:

That the conflict between the nations in Europe in which this
country is involved is owing to foreign ministers pursuing diplomatic
policies for the purpose of maintaining a balance of power; that our
own national policy of understandings with France and Russia only
was bound to increase the power of Russia both in Europe and Asia,
and to endanger good relations with Germany.

That Sir Edward Grey, as proved by the facts which he gave to
the House of Commons, committed without the knowledge of our
people the honor of the country to supporting France in the event of
any war in which she was seriously involved, and gave definite assur-
ances of support before the House of Commons had any chance of
considering the matter.

That the labor movement reiterates the fact that it has opposed
the policy which has produced the war, and that its duty now is to
secure peace at the earliest possible moment on such conditions as
will provide the best opportunities for the re-establishment of ami-
cable feelings between the workers of Europe.

POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

Following a conference representing every branch of the
labor and socialist movement, held on August 5, the Executive
of the Labor Party met again and adopted a resolution as
follows:

That without in any way receding from the position that the labor
movement has taken in opposition to our engaging in the European
war, the Executive of the party advises that, whilst watching for the
earliest opportunity for taking effective action in the interests of peace
and the re-establishment of good feeling between the workers of the
European nations, all labor and socialist organizations should con-
centrate their energies meantime upon the task of carrying out the
resolutions passed at the conference of labor organizations held at
the House of Commons on August 5th, detailing measures to be taken
to mitigate the destitution which will inevitably overtake our work-
ing people whilst the state of war lasts.

The above documents make clear the view of the Labor
Party as to the issue involved in the war, and the reason of
Britain’s entry into it, before passions and fear had been
aroused. The issue was seen to be one concerning rival im-
perialisms of Slav and Teuton in the Near East, one in which
western Europe had been embroiled only because of a chain of
alliances. Up to the end of the first weeks in August the posi-
tion of the labor movement, as expressed by all its official pro-
nouncements, was this: that the foreign policy of Britain had
been a contributory cause of the war; that in backing Russia
in her quarrel in eastern Europe, Britain was taking a course
not in the interest of democracy; that the function of labor,
now that war had broken out, was to guard the economic in-
terests of the workers and to watch for the earliest oppor-
tunity to secure a just peace and to rebuild the International—
in short to hold a watching brief for the working class and
internationalism.

But events moved rapidly, and the report of the parliament-
ary party for 1914 speaks thus of the movement of feeling,
after war had been declared:

The opinion of the majority of the Party, after several meetings to
consider the situation, crystallized into a conviction that under the

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No. 1] BRITISH LABOR MOVEMENT AND THE WAR 7

circumstances it was impossible for this country to have remained
neutral.

On August 7, the party met to decide its attitude on the first
war credit. It declined to instruct its chairman to make a
statement in the Commons consistent with the resolution pre-
viously passed as to the causes of the war. Consequently, Mr.
MacDonald resigned the chairmanship. He was succeeded by
Mr. Arthur Henderson. On a vote for money for the greatest
war in history the British Labor Party thus had nothing to say.

By the end of August there was a definite cleavage in the
party. The Prime Minister invited the Parliamentary Labor
Party to co-operate in the formation of a joint parliamentary
recruiting committee and the party agreed to do so, its action
being sanctioned by the National Executive. Both inside the
party and outside there were labor men who supported the war
but doubted the desirability of such a definite alliance with the
Liberal and Tory parties. However, the thing was done; the
Trade-Union Congress, which should have been held the fol-
lowing month, was indefinitely postponed, and a little later
an industrial truce was established. For the most part out-
standing trade disputes were settled by mutual agreement;
the trade unions put pending demands on the shelf; and a
tacit understanding was brought about that there should be
neither strikes nor lockouts during the war. Labor made
peace with its enemies unconditionally, although the labor
leaders feared that the war would have grave economic con-
sequences for the working class. The decision of the ma-

1 The industrial truce, however, broke down as soon as food prices began to
rise and the government ignored the labor demand for state control of the
food supply. There has been a considerable number of strikes since the end of
1914, mostly of small dimensions, but a few of a serious character, such as the
South Wales coal strike and the engineers’ strike on the Clyde. The great bulk
of the disputes, however, have been settled by government-appointed arbitra-
tors. All the organized wage-earners have received advances during the war
and these range from 10 s. per week won by the railwaymen down to two or
three shillings. Most of these advances are not advances of wages properly so
called, but “war bonuses,” which are payable only until the conclusion of
peace or shortly after. As prices are not likely to fall to pre-war levels for
long after the peace, the claims of employers to cease paying “ war bonuses”
are likely to cause a good deal of trouble.

8 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [Vo.. XXXII

jority of the Labor Party to join in a government recruiting
campaign made clear the division of the labor forces. On the
one side were the overwhelming majority of trade unionists,
ranging themselves behind the government and flocking in
thousands to the colors; on the other was the I. L. P., retaining
its independence and adopting a critically hostile attitude.

Two questions were involved in this division: (1) the causes
of the war and the motives of Britain in entering it; (2) the
proper function of the labor movement during war. The
majority held that men did not cease to be citizens because
they were socialists or trade unionists. They were Britons, and
Britain was in peril. They would defend her. They believed
in the justice of the British cause, and thought that they could
better assist the cause in co-operation with others than in isola-
tion. Moreover, if the labor movement opposed the war, it
would lessen its influence in the future. The argument was
precisely that used by the majority of the German socialists
to justify their own support of the German government.
Morally and intellectually the majorities in the two countries
took exactly the same position.

When the Prime Minister declared that Britain was fighting
for the rights of small nations, the sanctity of treaties, and the
overthrow of militarism, the overwhelming majority of the
labor movement believed that he meant what he said. The fol-
lowing manifesto was signed by twenty-five labor M. P.’s, the
parliamentary committee of the Trade-Union Congress, the
management committee of the General Federation of Trade
Unions, and other labor leaders:

The British labor movement has always stood for peace. During
the last decade it has made special efforts to promote friendly rela-
tions between the peoples of Great Britain and Germany. Deputa-
tions of labor representatives have taken messages of good-will across
the North Sea despite the obstacles to international working-class
solidarity which existed. In turn, German labor leaders on similar
missions have been welcomed in this country by the organized work-
ers. A strong hope was beginning to dawn that out of this inter-
course would grow a permanent peaceful understanding between the
two nations.

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No. 1] BRITISH LABOR MOVEMENT AND THE WAR 9

But this hope has been destroyed, at least for a time, by the de-
liberate act of the ruler of the military Empire of Germany. The
refusal of Germany to the proposal made by England that a confer-
ence of the European powers should deal with the dispute between
Austria and Servia, the peremptory domineering ultimatum to Russia,
and the rapid preparations to invade France, all indicate that the
German military caste were determined on war if the rest of Europe
could not be cowed into submission by other means. The wanton
violation of the neutrality of Belgium was proof that nothing, not
even national honor and good faith, was to stand between Germany
and the realization of its ambitions to become the dominant military
power of Europe, with the Kaiser the dictator over all.

The Labor Party in the House of Commons, face to face with this
situation, recognized that Great Britain, having exhausted the re-
sources of peaceful diplomacy, was bound in honor, as well as by
treaty, to resist by arms the aggression of Germany. The party
realized that if England had not kept her pledges to Belgium, and
had stood aside, the victory of the German army would have been
probable, and the victory of Germany would mean the death of
democracy in Europe.

Working-class aspirations for greater political and economic power
would be checked, thwarted, and crushed, as they have been in the
German Empire. Democratic ideas cannot thrive in a state where
militarism is dominant ; and the military state with a subservient and
powerless working class is the avowed political ideal of the German
ruling caste.

The Labor party, therefore, as representing the most democratic
elements in the British nation, has given its support in Parliament to
the measures necessary to enable this country to carry on the struggle
effectively. It has joined in the task of raising an army large enough
to meet the national need by taking active part in the recruiting
campaign organized by the various parliamentary parties. Members
of the party have addressed numerous meetings throughout the coun-
try for this purpose, and the central machinery of the party has been
placed at the service of the recruiting campaign. This action has
been heartily endorsed by the parliamentary committee of the Trade-
Union Congress, which represents the overwhelming majority of the
trade unionists of the country. The committee, in a manifesto on the
war, states:

“The mere contemplation of the overbearing and brutal methods
to which people have to submit under a government controlled by a

10 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [Vor. XXXII

military autocracy—living, as it were, continuously under the threat
and shadow of war—should be sufficient to arouse the enthusiasm of
the nation in resisting any attempt to impose similar conditions upon
countries at present free from military despotism.”

The policy of the British labor movement has been dictated by a
fervent desire to save Great Britain and Europe from the evils that
would follow the triumph of military despotism. Until the power
which has pillaged and outraged Belgium and the Belgians, and
plunged nearly the whole of Europe into the awful misery, suffering
and horror of war, is beaten, there can be no peace. While the con-
flict lasts England must be sustained both without and within ; com-
batants and non-combatants must be supported to the utmost. The
labor movement has done and is doing its part in this paramount
national duty, confident that the brutal doctrine and methods of
German militarism will fail. When the time comes to discuss the
terms of peace the labor movement will stand, as it has always stood,
for an international agreement among all civilized nations that dis-
putes and misunderstandings in the future shall be settled not by
machine guns but by arbitration.

It remains to be noted that a motive of the Labor Party in
joining the recruiting campaign was the desire to prevent con-
scription. Speaking at Walsall on September 2, 1914, Mr.
Henderson said:

I am not ashamed to say that we of the Labor Party are opposed,
and I hope will always be opposed, to conscription; and I am op-
posed to all forms of compulsory military service. . . . He believed
the voluntary system would meet the national needs even if, as was
quite possible, another half-million men, perhaps two more half-
million after that, were called for. . . . The voluntary system was
not going to fail.

Passing from the view of the majority to that of the minor-
ity—the I. L. P. could not reconcile the declarations of the
government with the record of the government as a whole or
the record of prominent personalities in it. The ideals were
worthy, but the question was whether statesmen would live
up to them. The best way for the labor movement to see that
statesmen did so was, not to compromise the movement by alli-
ance with the government, but to preserve absolute freedom

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No. 1] BRITISH LABOR MOVEMENT AND THE WAR II

of criticism. Moreover, war was a soil in which reaction flour-
ished. The anti-democratic forces in the country were still
anti-democratic and it was the special duty of labor and social-
ism to see that war abroad was not made an excuse for the
conquest of democracy at home. In common with the other
sections of the movement, the I. L. P. had declared before the
outbreak of the war that it would be a crime to plunge the
British people into the conflict as a result of secret understand-
ings, and in support of Russia. A threatened crime did not
become a virtue when it was successfully committed. The
following passage is from the manifesto issued by the National
Administrative Council of the I. L. P., which was endorsed
almost unanimously by the general membership:

For the present, Sir Edward Grey issues his White Paper to prove
Germany the aggressor, just as Germany issues a White Paper to
prove Russia the aggressor, and Russia to prove Austria the aggres-
sor. Even if every word in the British White Paper were admitted,
the wider indictment remains. Let it be acknowledged that, in the
days immediately preceding the war, Sir Edward Grey worked for
peace. It was too late. Over a number of years, together with
other diplomats, he had himself dug the abyss, and wise statesman-
ship would have foreseen and avoided the certain result.

It was not the Servian question or the Belgian question that pulled
this country into the deadly struggle. Great Britain is not at war
because of oppressed nationalities or Belgian neutrality. Even had
Belgian neutrality not been wrongfully infringed by Germany, we
should still have been drawn in. . . . Behind the back of Parliament
and people the British Foreign Office gave secret understandings to
France, denying their existence when challenged. That is why this
country is now face to face with the red ruin and impoverishment of
war. ‘Treaties and agreements have dragged republican France at
the heels of despotic Russia, Britain at the heels of France... .

We desire neither the aggrandizement of German militarism nor
Russian militarism, but the danger is that this war will promote one
or the other. Britain has placed herself behind Russia, the most re-
actionary, corrupt and oppressive power in Europe. If Russia is
permitted to gratify her territorial ambitions, and extend her Cossack
tule, civilization and democracy will be greatly imperiled. Is it for
this that Britain has drawn the sword?

12 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [Vot. XXXII

On August 12, the Executive of the B. S. P. issued a mani-
festo stating that Britain had been drawn into the war “ by the
declaration of war upon Belgium by Germany because of the
refusal of that little state to forego its guaranteed neutrality
in the interests of the attacking Power,” and following this
the majority of the Executive, and the controllers of the party
organ, Justice, adopted an attitude which was hardly distin-
guishable from that of orthodox supporters of the war.

This awful catastrophe [the war] is the result of the alliances,
ententes, and understandings entered into, and “ assurances” given
by the governments and the chancelleries of Europe without any
reference to the people themselves. . . .

Never again must we entrust our foreign affairs to secret diplo-
macy. . . . The war will break down the ententes, understandings,
and alliances made without our knowledge and consent. Then will
come the opportunity for a genuine democratic agreement between
the peoples themselves.

Such an agreement between the peoples of France, Germany and
Britain would be a solid guarantee of peace and a powerful bulwark
against the encroachments of Russian despotism, a result which may
easily come of the present war.

This policy was not endorsed by the members of the party,
a majority of whom took a position similar to that of the I. L.
P. At the annual conference held at Easter 1916, the minor-
ity, led by Mr. H. M. Hyndman and most of the best-known
leaders broke away and founded the National Socialist Party.
Justice was the official organ of the new party, the B. S. P.
successfully inaugurating The Call, which is its official mouth-
piece today.’

The report of the Parliamentary Labor Party for 1914
states that the party undertook to appeal for recruits

understanding that the speakers in the campaign would not neces-
sarily be responsible for any contrary opinions regarding the original

1 No statement on the war was issued by the Fabian Society, which has con-
fined itself to measures for relieving distress, and elaborate researches into
“International Government” and “ How to Pay for the War,” the results of
which have been published.

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No. 1] BRITISH LABOR MOVEMENT AND THE WAR 13

causes of the war or the chain of circumstances which led up to it,
but that all that had to be done was to appeal to the young men of
the nation to come to the defense of their country.

Obviously such a position was impossible. The recruiting
campaign was actually used to justify, not only the need for
soldiers in the situation as it then was, but the previous foreign
policy of Britain.» Many though not all of the labor men
introduced into their speeches violent fulminations against the
German Social Democrats. In effect they justified everything
the jingoes had said before the war about the “ German peril.”’
The extension of the war area, the Dardanelles and Mesopota-
mian expeditions, with all that they implied as to the extension
of Russian influence and a struggle of rival capitalist imperial-
isms in and about Asia Minor, gave no pause to the labor lead-
ers. Before six months of the war had elapsed they had placed
themselves in such a position that they could not consistently
refuse the government anything it asked.

Meantime, the I. L. P. had been acting in the spirit of the
labor-party resolutions. It conducted a persistent propaganda
showing the part played by secret diplomacy in producing the
war, and warning the people against the danger to democracy
of an increase in the power of Russia. It did what it could to
counteract the influence of newspaper incendiaries and others
who fanned the flames of hatred. It exposed and denounced
the armaments ring. It strove to keep alive the spirit of in-
ternationalism and to encourage the minority of the German
socialists. It directed attention to any departure of the allies
from the principles extolled by the Prime Minister at the
outset of the war. It gained strength by co-operating with
other pacifist and democratic forces, such as the little group of
parliamentary radicals and the Union of Democratic Control.
Indeed, its propaganda was largely on the lines of the Union,

1 The recruiting platform was also used, however, to agitate for better pay-
ment for soldiers and higher separation allowances and pensions. The whole
of the labor movement took part in this agitation and as a result the scales
of pay were improved, though not even to the modest extent that the move-
ment demanded.

14 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

and it rather neglected the distinctively socialist case against
war. Of war as a product of capitalism, a consequence of the
export of capital accumulated by reason of the mal-distribution
of wealth—of that aspect of the matter little was heard, as
compared with the attention devoted to by-products of capi-
talism, such as secret diplomacy and the monopolizing of the
Foreign Office and the diplomatic service by the aristocracy.
The British labor movement could never be got to interest
itself in foreign affairs in times of peace, and this weakness
was revealed during the war in the I. L. P. as well as in
the wider movement.’ It was largely radicals like Mr. Roden
Buxton, Mr. Arthur Posonby, M. P., Mr. Charles Trevel-
yan, M. P., and Mr. H. N. Brailsford, who in the I. L. P.
organ, The Labor Leader, expounded foreign problems of the
war. The most powerful criticism of the popular view of
the war ever penned appeared in the columns of the Leader,
but its author was not a socialist, but an ex-Liberal-candidate,
Mr. E. D. Morel. The I. L. P. representatives in Parliament
have never gone so far as to vote against the war credits or to
abstain from voting for them as an avowed part of their policy.
Even in these later days of the war, while the party has been
agitating for a statement by the government of its aims, de-
claring that a military decision will never be reached and that
a continuation of the war involves useless slaughter, none of
its representatives have voted against further supplies.

The invitation of the Prime Minister to assist in the recruit-
ing campaign was the first great test of the Labor Party in the
war. The second was the formation of the coalition govern-
ment in May 1915. The political atmosphere was fuil of
intrigue and suspicion, and in the midst of it came the invita-
tion to the Labor Party to join the new ministry. The invita-
tion was accepted. Mr. Henderson entered the cabinet as
president of the Board of Education; Mr. G. H. Roberts, M. P.,
and Mr. William Brace, M. P., as junior lord of the Treasury

1 As some qualification of this statement it should be pointed out that since
the Morocco crisis of 1911 the I. L. P. leaders have been vigilant critics of
Sir Edward Grey’s policy, which was strongly condemned by resolution at the
I. L. P. conference of 1912.

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No. 1] BRITISH LABOR MOVEMENT AND THE WAR 15

and under secretary of the Home Office, respectively. To
this step the I. L. P. was bitterly opposed. Mr. F. W. Jowett,
M. P., the I. L. P. chairman, wrote as follows:

There is not a single form of assistance which labor supporters of
the war could not give, if the opportunity were freely offered them,
without tying themselves to reactionary politicians in the coalition
ministry, under a system of cabinet government the keystone of which
is the joint responsibility of the whole ministry for the individual
policy and action of its members. . . . Depend upon it, the two main
parties will have reached agreement upon these questions [conscrip-
tion and taxation] before a full cabinet is asked to consider proposals
already prepared and as good as passed. In the meantime, while the
arch-conspirators are at work, a labor minister’s lips will be sealed.
It would be rank disloyalty to his colleagues and a sin against the
sacred ark of cabinet government to say a word in the way of warn-
ing the public—or the Labor Party—or to prepare public opinion to
meet the coming danger.

The decline of the Labor Party as a parliamentary force
was apparent soon after its adhesion to the coalition. One of
the first measures of the new government was the munitions
bill. Among the main provisions affecting wage-earners were
those prohibiting men from leaving government-controlled es-
tablishments without a certificate from a tribunal set up for the
purpose, even though the men might be kept without work or
wages; making strikes (or lockouts) illegal; and suspending
all trade-unicn rules and conditions. The Labor Party and
the trade-union leaders outside Parliament accepted the bill
in a form which gave rise to widespread unrest and discon-
tent, although the workmen were eager and willing to ren-
der the utmost assistance to the national cause. Hundreds of
workmen were fined under the act, and three or four suffered
imprisonment. Within six months the government was com-
pelled to pass an amending bill. The Munitions Act showed
that the presence of labor men in the government was of little
value as a safeguard of labor interests.

The third great test of the labor movement was the coming
of conscription. In August 1915, the National Registration

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16 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [Vot. XXXII

Act was passed, under which all persons of both sexes between
the ages of sixteen and sixty were registered, with various par-
ticulars as to occupation, capabilities and number of depend.
ents. The government denied that the bill had anything to do
with the bringing-in of conscription, and this allayed much
opposition. Nevertheless, apart from I. L. P. members, three
other labor M. P.’s voted against it, including Mr. C. W.
Bowerman, secretary of the Trade-Union Congress, and Mr.
J. H. Thomas, assistant secretary of the National Union of
Railwaymen. Thus the first year of the war came to an end.

A month later the Trade-Union Congress was held. The
congress showed that the action of the leaders had reflected
the mind of the rank and file. On a show of hands, a resolu-
tion was passed with only seven dissentients declaring the
action of Great Britain and her allies to be “ completely justi-
fied” and pledging the congress to give all possible assistance
to the government in prosecuting the war. The congress also
recorded its “ entire approval ” of the Labor Party’s action in
co-operating with other parties in recruiting. The main inter-
est of the congress, however, centered in conscription. At the
time, the agitation for conscription was at its height and pas-
sions were beginning to run high. The labor opponents of
compulsory service were by no means confined to the opponents
of the war. The whole country was looking to the congress to
see what would be its attitude on this great issue. By unani-
mous vote the following resolution from the parliamentary
committee was carried :

That we, the delegates to this Congress representing nearly three
million organized workers, record our hearty appreciation of the
magnificent response made to the call for volunteers to fight the
tyranny of militarism.

We emphatically protest against the sinister efforts of a section of
the reactionary press in formulating newspaper policies for party
purposes and attempting to foist upon this country conscription,

1 The I. L. P. had held its annual conference as usual the previous Easter,
when it was shown that only a negligible minority was opposed to its war
policy. For instance, a resolution approving the lead given by the Executive
was carried by 118 votes to three.

eee, ees

i

No. 1] BRITISH LABOR MOVEMENT AND THE WAR 17

which always proves a burden to the workers, and will divide the
nation at a time when absolute unanimity is essential.

No reliable evidence has been produced to show that the voluntary
system of enlistment is not adequate to meet all the Empire’s re-
quirements.

We believe that all the men necessary can, and will, be obtained
through a voluntary system properly organized, and we heartily sup-
port and will give every aid to the government in their present efforts
to secure the men necessary to prosecute the war to a successful issue.

The passing of the motion was accompanied by a wild outburst
of enthusiasm which was repeated again and again.

When, however, we come to look at the resolution closely, we
see that it was practically a surrender of the principle con-
cerned. It simply declared that conscription was not then a
military necessity. The resolution implied that the congress
was prepared to acquiesce in the imposition of conscription on
Britain in order to fight a continental war if conscription were
“necessary.” The question thus became one of expediency,
not of principle, and the government, which had the whole
conduct of the war in its hands, could naturally lay claim to
superior knowledge as to what was or was not expedient. It
thus came about that, although the anti-conscriptionists had
the best of the argument, and riddled the case for compulsion,
those who actually resisted conscription to the last were a mere
handful.

Three weeks after the meeting of the Trade-Union Congress,
a conference of the three national committees and a number
of labor M. P.’s was on its own invitation addressed by the
Prime Minister and the then War Minister (the late Lord
Kitchener). Two days later, on September 29, the following
resolution was passed :

That this joint conference of the Parliamentary Committee of the
Trades-Union Congress, the Executive Committee of the Labor
Party, the Management Committee of the General Federation of
Trade Unions, and members of the Parliamentary Labor Party, hav-
ing heard statements from Lord Kitchener and the Prime Minister
on the military position, declares its belief that the number of men
required for the navy, army and munitions works in order to carry

18 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

on the war successfully, can be obtained by voluntary means. It fur-
ther pledges itself to assist the government in every possible way to
secure men for service in the navy, army, and in munitions works,
and for this purpose is willing to organize and co-operate in a re-
cruiting campaign throughout the country.

It suggests that voluntary recruiting would be more successful if
the government would:

(a) State frankly (as far as compatible with public interest) what
has already been done by voluntary means for the prosecution of the
war and what are the present and future needs in men of the navy,
army, and munitions works.

(b) Insist that all employers should no longer prevent their men
from enlisting.

The labor recruiting committee set to work with a will. Speak-
ing at Deptford on October 24, Mr. H. Gosling, president of
the Trade-Union Congress, said:

Lord Kitchener got right down to business and told us exactly
what he wants and why he wants it. He satisfied every one of us as
to what the position was, so that we had no doubts about it or what
the requirements to carry it through are. .. . We have promised
our allies that we are going to assist them with an army of a certain
size. There is no going back on that promise.*

The special efforts of the labor recruiting committee had
hardly begun, however, before Lord Derby was appointed
director general of recruiting, and the so-called Derby
scheme was put into operation about the beginning of No-
vember. Under this scheme all men of military age were
canvassed and requested to attest as soldiers or state their rea-
sons for not doing so. At the same time tribunals were set
up to which attested men had the right of appeal for exemption
from service with the forces. Certain occupations had already
been “starred” as occupations from which men were not to
be drawn for military service. In the course of the six weeks
during which the Derby scheme was in operation, Mr. Asquith
gave his now famous pledge that if the number of unstarred,
unattested single men, after their various grounds for exemp-

1 Manchester Guardian, October 25, 1915.

No. 1] BRITISH LABOR MOVEMENT AND THE WAR 19

tion had been investigated, were more than a “ negligible quan-
tity,’ compulsion would be resorted to before the married men
were called to the colors. As a result of this pledge a great
number of married men attested.

Lord Derby’s report, held back to the last minute, was issued
on January 4, 1916. It stated the number of unstarred, unat-
tested single men as 651,000. The cabinet had decided on
conscription immediately after Christmas, and the day after the
issue of the report the military service bill was introduced into
the House of Commons. Of the report there had been no pub-
lic discussion whatever, much less that investigation into the
character of the residue of unstarred, unattested single men
which was essential to the proper fulfilment of the conditions
of the Premier’s pledge.

This was the position when a special labor congress, con-
vened by the joint board, met in London on January 6 and
passed the following resolution:

This congress reaffirms the decision of the Bristol Trades-Union
Congress when it unanimously protested in the name of over three
million workers against compulsory military service; .it regrets that
the unity and solidarity of the nation have been gravely imperiled,
and industrial and political liberty menaced by the proposal to intro-
duce such a system, against which it makes its most emphatic protest,
and decides to use every means in its power to oppose.

The conference rejoices at the magnificent success of the appeal
to the voluntary system, which in so short a time has supplied the
country with an army of 4,000,000 free men, and is emphatically of
opinion that no case has been made out for any measure of limited
or temporary compulsion, which we regard as the first step to a gen-
eral application of a vicious principle. We declare that all the men
required for military and industrial purposes can be obtained by a
continuance of the voluntary method.

This conference further considers that the proposals of the govern-
ment would be economically disastrous to the life of the nation and
declares its opposition to the bill, and recommends the Labor Party
in Parliament to oppose it in all its stages.

This resolution was passed by 1,998,000 votes to 783,000. The
Miners’ Federation was not represented at the congress, and if

20 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

it had been, as its own separate conference showed, another
800,000 votes would have been cast against the government.’

The inevitable sequel to the decision of the special congress
was that the Labor Party decided to oppose the bill, and as a
consequence the labor ministers resigned from the government.
The coalition was broken—but not for long. At his own re-
quest, the Prime Minister met the Parliamentary Labor Party
and the National Executive in private conference, and at this
meeting, according to the report of the Labor Party for 1914-
1915,

assurances were given that there would be no extension of compul-
sion to married men, that the bill was to operate during the war
only, that amendments would be introduced obviating any possibility
of industrial conscription, that the tribunals would be civilian and
not military courts, and that opportunity would be afforded Parlia-
ment to strengthen the clause exempting conscientious objectors.

The New Statesman, which, as practically the unofficial organ
of the Fabian Society, may be assumed to have been specially
well informed on this matter, gave the following version of
what passed: ”

Mr. Asquith pledged himself, spontaneously and unequivocally,
both against any application of compulsion to married men during
the war and against any continuance of compulsion after the war.
He pointed out, we are told, that he naturally could not foresee what
the future might seem to require, or a subsequent Parliament might
demand. But if any extension of compulsory military service was
thus called for, he would be no party to it. Those who then wanted
it, he declared, must take his place!* At the same time he gave very
definite assurances . . . that the government would make no attempt
to use compulsion to get men for industrial purposes.

This satisfied the majority of the labor leaders and it was
agreed that the resignation of the labor ministers should be

1 Votes at labor conferences which run into thousands amd millions are
“card votes;” that is, every vote counts as a thousand members.

2 January 22, 1916.

3 Italics in the original.

1

ee

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ene Te ee ane De

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No. 1] BRITISH LABOR MOVEMENT AND THE WAR 21

withdrawn, pending the annual conference of the party, which
was to be held at the end of the month.

The military-service bill passed rapidly through the House
of Commons. It was shown, beyond dispute, that the Derby
figures were utterly unreliable; that Sir John Simon’s subse-
quent description of the 651,000 “single slackers” as “ Lord
Derby’s stage army ”’ quite fitted the case; but all to no pur-
pose. The government said the bill was necessary to the ef-
fective prosecution of the war. Mr. Henderson said the same
thing. On the second reading only eleven labor members op-
posed the bill and on the third reading only five, with two
others paired against it. The total number of votes cast against
the measure on the second reading was 39; and the minority
on both occasions included the six labor members who sit as
nominees of the I. L. P.

When the Labor-Party conference met, it was presented with
a fait accompli. The bill was already in the House of Lords
and there was a general disposition to accept what seemed to
be inevitable. The angry but helpless mood in which the con-
ference found itself was reflected in its decisions. By 1,796,000
votes to 219,000 it voted against conscription as “ against the
spirit of British democracy and full of danger to the liberties
of the people;” by 1,716,000 to 360,000 it declared its “ op-
position ” to the military-service bill; by 649,000 to 614,000
it declined to agitate for the bill’s repeal;* and it ended by
allowing its representatives to remain in the government!

The acceptance of conscription was a heavy blow to the in-
fluence of the labor movement, and particularly to that of the
Labor Party, and the gulf between majority and minority
widened. It will be admitted that the movement had been
placed in a very difficult position by the Prime Minister’s
pledge. True, the pledge was a breach of the truce supposed
to prevail during the operation of the Derby scheme, but it
was none the less a fact. No effective protest had been made
when it was given. The government declared that it would

1 The smallness of this vote is accounted for by the abstention of the Miners’
Federation.

22 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY ([Vot. XXXII

not call up the married men unless the single men were first
conscripted, and thus the absence of compulsion would have
meant foregoing the services of 895,000 attested married men.
These men could, of course, have offered freely to enter the
army ; but there was a considerable outcry among the married
that the single should go first, and it is reasonable to assume
that men who had delayed offering their services until after
sixteen months of persistent appeals for recruits, desired, for
reasons good, bad, or indifferent, to remain in civilian life.
The conscriptionists had set one half the community against
the other half, and the labor leaders in their efforts to save the
voluntary system had been completely out-maneuvered.

In the case of the second military-service act, however,
there, was no such complication as that to which the Premier’s
pledge gave rise. All the circumstances would have justified
the labor movement in opposing an extension of conscrip-
tion. Mr. Asquith’s promise that he would be no party to
general conscription was but four months old, and the ad-
ministration of the first act had been full of inequality, il-
legality and harshness. The conscience clause had become
almost a dead-letter and had been administered with a com-
bination of imbecility and brutality.

Following the failure of a compromise conscription bill de-
vised by Mr. Henderson, a measure to provide for immediate
and general conscription was at once forthcoming and was
quickly passed, the opponents being approximately the same
as those of the first military-service bill. No national labor
conference was called, and with the passing of the second
military-service act the Parliamentary Labor Party ceased to
exist as an independent political force.

How has the Labor Party carried out its resolution to watch
for “the earliest opportunity to promote a peace which would
aid the re-establishment of good feeling among the workers
of Europe”? The invitation of the American Federation of
Labor to the Trade-Union Congress and the General Feder-
ation of Trade Unions to co-operate in the holding of an
international congress at the same time and place as the peace
conference has been rejected by both bodies. The General

No. 1] BRITISH LABOR MOVEMENT AND THE WAR 23

Federation appears to contemplate the setting-up of an Inter-
national coinciding with the grouping of the allies in the war.
The Labor Party has done no better.

Early in 1915, the Executive of the International Socialist
Bureau invited representatives of the British section to confer
with them at The Hague. The invitation finally was not ac-
cepted. MM. Vandervelde and Huysmans came to England
to meet their British colleagues and had interviews separately
with representatives of the Labor Party, the I. L. P., the
B. S. P., and the Fabian Society, whom they requested to dis-
cuss the problems of the war settlement and to forward their
conclusions to the bureau executive. Nothing has been done
by the Labor Party in response to this invitation, but the
three other bodies have drawn up documents relating to the
principles and conditions of peace.

The I. L. P. recommends the following for inclusion among
the conditions of settlement:

1. No annexation of territory invaded or seized by force of arms.

2. The restoration and indemnification of Belgium.

3. The questions of the boundaries and independence of Poland
and the Balkan states, together with the readjustment of other
national boundaries, to be the subject of international adjudication
with the assent of the people whose national affiliation it is proposed
to change.

4. Dependencies in Africa and elsewhere to be dealt with by agree-
ment—freedom of commerce in those dependencies to be equal for all
nations. The economic and political freedom of the native peoples
to be fully safeguarded.

With respect to the establishment of guarantees for future peace:

1. All treaties between nations to be. public documents, submitted
to and endorsed by the parliaments of the contracting parties. Secret
treaties to be invalid in international law.

2. An international court and council to be created to administer
international law.

3. The manufacture and supply of armaments by private com-
panies to be abolished with a view to the ultimate abolition of arma-
ments in favor of international arbitration and law.

4. International free trade. The policy of the open door, together
with international labor legislation upon such matters as the eight-

24 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (Vor. XXXII

hour day, a minimum wage limit for child workers, and the abolition
of sweating.
5. The abolition of compulsory military service.

The B. S. P. held that a condition of any effective action by
socialists was a full meeting of the International Bureau, and
subject to that reservation proposed:

1. No transfer of territory without the consent of the inhabitants
as ascertained by referendum.

2. No indemnity from the defeated party.

3. Local political and cultural self-government for nationalities
forming part of a state.

4. Removal of protective tariffs in all countries and colonies.

5. Socialist support of proposals for the limitation of armaments
and international arbitration. Peace, however, can only be guar-
anteed by the eternal watchfulness and action of the internationally
organized working class.

The points of a long, reasoned document submitted by the
Fabian Society to the bureau were as follows:

1. The establishment of a supernational authority, representing
proportionately the various independent sovereign states, with an in-
ternational high court for the settlement of all justiciable disputes,
and an international court for mediation with regard to issues that
are not justiciable. This would be much the most important pro-
vision of a treaty of peace.

2. As between the territorial mutilation of united Germany and its
compulsory disarmament, socialists should oppose the first and sup-
port the second, as it would enable the allies to come to a voluntary
agreement for the limitation of armaments.

3. Nationalist grievances to be redressed wherever possible, but
not by plebiscites, which ‘‘ must be useless in practice and dangerous
in principle.” In certain instances geographical and strategic re-
quirements of states must override nationalist aspirations. Peoples
concerned might be transferred to other areas.

4. No economic war after the ending of hostilities. Open door in
tropical dependencies, together with free trade.

5. In view of the fact that widespread misery in one country in-
jures the whole world, the governments should take steps each in
its own country to prevent unemployment.

P . a a easel

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No. 1] BRITISH LABOR MOVEMENT AND THE WAR 25

6. Restoration and re-establishment of Belgium; also reparation
in all the countries ravaged by war, not merely with regard to public
property and the private wealth of capitalists, but also with regard
to the cottage and equipment of the peasant, the dwelling and house-
hold furniture of the artisan and laborer, and the economic assur-
ance of livelihood for all the families concerned.

The Labor Party refused to consider the problems of peace;
its annual conference in January 1916 even rejected by a large
majority a resolution declaring that Great Britain should pro-
pose as part of the settlement a reduction of armaments; that
her foreign policy should be directed to the establishment of
a concert of Europe; that no territory should be transferred
at the close of the war without the consent of the people in-
volved; and that it was desirable not to enter into treaties,
arrangements and understandings without the sanction of
Parliament.

The nearest approach to international action made by the
Labor Party during the war was its participation in the con-
ference of socialists of the allied countries held in February
1915. The statement agreed upon at this meeting served only
to emphasize the differences between those assembled. It de-
clared on the one hand that a victory for the allies would be
a victory

for popular liberty, for independence of the nations in the peaceful
federation of the world—

which the I. L. P. has never believed; and on the other hand
that the conference could not ignore

the profound general causes of the conflict, itself a monstrous product
of the antagonisms which tear asunder capitalist society and of the
policy of colonial dependencies and aggressive imperialism .. . in
which every government has its share of responsibility—

causes which the majority of the Labor Party has never ap-
peared to recognize.
In contrast to this drift of the majority of the movement

26 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

away from internationalism,’ and its refusal even to consider
what sort of peace is desirable, when at last it does come, the
I. L. P. and the B. S. P. have encouraged every effort to re-
construct the International and have persistently called for a
full meeting of the bureau. When the Zimmerwald confer-
ence was convened at the instance of the Italian Socialist Party,
both these bodies appointed delegates, who were, however,
prevented from attending by the refusal of the Foreign Office
to grant them passports. Since the middle of 1915 the I. L. P.
has been demanding that the government state its aims in the
war, with a view to arriving at a basis for negotiation, so that
further slaughter may be prevented. In discussing this pro-
posal in Parliament during February 1916, Mr. Snowden,
after indicating the course of moderate opinion in Germany,
pleaded with Britain to gain ‘‘ the immortal glory” of being
the first to make a decisive move towards peace. Finally, im-
pressed by the ghastly failure of the “ right of national self-
defense”’ as a guiding principle for international socialism,
the I. L. P., at its annual conference in the spring of 1916
passed the following resolution by 235 votes to three:

This conference is of opinion that the socialists of all nations
should agree that henceforth the socialist parties should refuse sup-
port to every war entered into by any government, whatever the
ostensible object of the war and even if such war be nominally of a
defensive character, and instructs the I. L. P. delegation to bring
forward this policy for adoption at the next International Socialist
Conference.”

In this resolution an entirely new departure from hitherto

1 It may be noted that the war has never been so popular among the labor
organizations of Scotland as among those of England. At the annual con-
ference of the Scottish section of the Labor Party held in September 1916,
the refusal of the Executive to join in the recruiting campaign was endorsed,
and resolutions were passed by large majorities demanding a meeting of the
International Bureau, the “immediate repeal” of the military-service acts
and the ending of the war by negotiation.

2 It is worthy of note that when this resolution was brought before the I. L.
P. conference of 1915,no decision was come to, the “ previous question ” being
carried by 121 votes to 120.

a aaa

No. 1] BRITISH LABOR MOVEMENT AND THE WAR 27

accepted socialist policy is suggested. Before the war it would
have been laughed out of any international socialist gather-
ing; after the war, its discussion will serve to indicate how
far, if at all, the International’s conception of the relation of
socialism to nationality has been modified.

The divisions in the British labor movement today are not
so deep as appear on the surface. There will be no per-
manent split. The economic struggle after the war will suffice
to close the ranks. Any change is likely to take the form
simply of an alteration in the personnel of the labor front
benches. Some of the leaders certainly seem to have gone so
far in the way of accepting the ideas and ideals of the govern-
ing class as to make it impossible for them ever to go back.
Labor has been led, politically and industrially, into a position
of the utmost peril, and if after the war it finds difficulty in
extricating itself, it is more likely to turn on the men who
advised it to give up old rights and take up new and dangerous
burdens than it is to blame itself for its own acquiescence.
Such is the way of politics. On the other hand, the men who
have taken the unpopular side regarding the war have not lost
the confidence and affection of organized labor. As fraternal
delegate to the Trade-Union Congress, Mr. Ramsay Mac-
Donald can get a reception which for warmth and enthusiasm
rarely falls to the lot of a public man; and in the industrial
centers today the I. L. P. leaders draw large audiences, always
attentive and usually enthusiastic. Moreover, it is not the
habit of history to endorse the popular judgments of war time.
Official discussions are already going forward with a view
to closer co-operation between the political and industrial
sides of the movement and their more efficient organization.
The I. L. P. and the B. S. P. are taking steps to bring about
more unity of action between themselves. What the result
may be is outside the scope of this article.

A. W. HUMPHREY.
ASHTON-UNDER-LYNE, LANCASHIRE, ENGLAND.

THE SECRET SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE OF
COMMONS

HE secret sittings of the House of Commons on Tuesday
and Wednesday in Easter week, April 25 and 26, 1916,
were an innovation in practice, but not in theory. In
theory the sittings of the House have always been private.
Strangers are not admitted into the body of the House, and
not into its galleries and approaches except under arrange-
ments supervised by its executive officer, the sergeant at arms.
Until 1875, a single member of the House of Commons could
insist on the withdrawal of all strangers, including reporters.
The gallery in which “strangers ”’ sit is not a “ public place,”
and therefore when one stranger fired off a toy pistol, when
another threw a bag of flour at the Prime Minister, and when
a third performed the gymnastic feat of climbing over the
gallery railing and dropping on to the floor of the House, they
could not be dealt with under the statutes and rules of law
applicable to disturbances in public places. In older days
they might, under the formidable powers of the House of
Commons, have been summoned to the bar, confined to New-
gate or some other prison and visited with a heavy fine. In
these more tolerant times, when the advantages derived by an
offender from advertisement are more fully appreciated, these
particular offenders were more leniently handled. They were
taken quietly down to a locked room on the ground floor, kept
in this “ Little Ease”’ until the rising of the House, and then
ordered to go their ways.

The publication of reports of debates was for some time
strictly forbidden, then winked at, then tolerated, afterwards
sanctioned, assisted and encouraged. But until 1909 there
was no Official report of debate.*

These traditions of privacy materially facilitated the admin-
istrative arrangements required for a secret sitting. For the

1 For a history of the rules about strangers and the press, reference may be
made to chapter viii of my little book on Parliament (New York, Henry Holt
& Company, 1911).

28

~nctee ame

SECRET SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 29

internal arrangements of the House and its precincts the exer-
cise of existing powers and the application of existing rules
sufficed. For the control of external activities, exceptional
powers were taken under the Defense-of-the-Realm Acts,
“emergency ” measures which were passed for the purpose of
the present war, which are of only temporary duration and
which give large powers of control over the press. An Order
in Council of April 22 added to the previous regulations under
these acts further regulations which provided that

if either House of Parliament in pursuance of a resolution passed by
that House holds a secret session, it shall not be lawful for any per-
son in any newspaper, periodical, circular, or other printed publica-
tion, or in any public speech, to publish any report of, or to purport
to describe, or to refer to, the proceedings at such session, except such
report thereof as may be officially communicated through the Direc-
tors of the Official Press Bureau.

This regulation was made by way of precaution, but no pro-
ceedings were taken under it.

Apart from this exceptional regulation, the arrangements
were, as has been said above, carried out under the existing
standing orders and practice. In the year 1875, a well-known
Irish member “ espied strangers”’ when the Prince of Wales
was in the gallery, with the result that His Royal Highness
had to withdraw. This incident led to an alteration of the
standing orders. A standing order of that year provides that

if at any sitting of the House, or in committee, any member shall
take notice that strangers are present, Mr. Speaker, or the Chairman
(as the case may be), shall forthwith put the question, “ That
strangers be ordered to withdraw,” without permitting any debate or
amendment: provided that the Speaker or the Chairman may, when-
ever he thinks fit, order the withdrawal of strangers from any part
of the House.

When it became known that this course was to be adopted, a
formidable objection was raised in the columns of The Times
newspaper. Under the existing practice the order “ that
strangers do withdraw ” does not apply to the ladies’ galleries.
Whether this practice was based on some doubt as to whether

30 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

these galleries are technically inside or outside the House, or
on some apprehension of practical difficulties in enforcing the
order, it boots not to inquire. The practice of the House of
Commons, like the practice of some judicial and other bodies,
is based upon precedent, but not necessarily upon principle.
In any case there was the practice. But the difficulty was very
simply met. The speaker gave orders that ladies were not
to be admitted, and, therefore no question about their removal
arose. Experiments were also made whether there were any
other places technically outside the House from which the
debate could be heard. It was found that the members’ lobby,
the adjoining post office and another office were such places,
and they were closed when the proper time came. Nor was the
ventilation chamber beneath the House forgotten. The grat-
ings in the floor through which air, after having been passed
through purifying layers of cotton wool, is admitted for the
respiration of members, admit sound, and a person standing
underneath these gratings can hear what is going on above.
So the appropriate precautions were taken.

One further question arose. What was to be done about
the staff of official reporters appointed by the speaker to supply
the official reports of debates which now take the place of the
venerable Hansard? Should they, or any of them, be allowed
to attend? And should they take notes, not for immediate
publication, but as a future record? The decision was in the
negative, and it was arranged that the prime minister should
supply Mr. Speaker with a brief summary of the proceedings,
to be approved by the speaker, and to be forwarded by him
to the press bureau for publication.

These arrangements having been made, the sitting of Tues-
day began in the usual manner with formal proceedings and
question to ministers, in the presence of reporters and other
“strangers.”’ Then, at the close of the preliminary proceed-
ings, the prime minister rose and “ took notice”’ that strangers
were present, the speaker put the question, “That strangers be
ordered to withdraw,” and, no opposition being offered, the
order was made. Thereupon reporters, peers and “ distin-
guished” and other “strangers” streamed out of their re-

5 are

No. 1] SECRET SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 31

spective galleries, and as the House was inconveniently
crowded, members streamed in to occupy the places left vacant.
When the room had been cleared, the House passed a resolution
“That the remainder of this day’s sitting be a secret session,”
so as to bring the proceedings within the terms of the Order
in Council. For the subsequent proceedings the reader must
be referred to the communiqué issued to the press bureau, a
brief and not very informative document. As a desire was
expressed to continue the secret sitting for another day, the
same proceedings were repeated on the following day.

During the continuance of the secret sitting the only officers
of the House who remained within were the clerk of the
House and his two colleagues at the table, and the sergeant
atarms. The large doors at the east end, through which mem-
bers usually enter, were closed and guarded by the doorkeepers
outside. The doorkeepers at the other end took their seats
outside instead of inside the little door through which mem-
bers enter behind the speaker’s chair, and which is usually
kept locked, though ministers and others have keys. The ar-
rangements were such that members had no difficulty in pass-
in and out during the sitting. These are minute details, but
when any departure is made from time-honored observances,
practical difficulties are always apprehended and sometimes
arise. In this case they did not arise.

Was the experiment a success? The immediate object was
understood to have been to obtain acceptance by the House
of a measure of compulsory military service, and for that pur-
pose to state facts and use arguments which could not prudently
have been stated or used in public. If this was the object, it
was not attained, for the measure introduced on the day fol-
lowing the second secret sitting was opposed by some as going
too far, by others as not going far enough; it met with little
support and was promptly withdrawn, to be superseded by a
more comprehensive measure which became law. But was the
experiment such as to encourage repetition? On the whole,
the general opinion appears to be in the negative. The prime
minister’s statement contained certain facts and figures the
publication of which would not have been consistent with

32 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (VoL. XXXII

military prudence or with our duty to our allies, but revealed
little, perhaps, beyond what was generally known or surmised.
The proceedings were orderly and dignified. The speeches
were good, and sometimes gained in piquancy and interest,
because speakers availed themselves of a freedom of statement
and comment which they would not have exercised if reporters
had been present. The obligation of secrecy was observed.
Whatever may have leaked out in private conversation, noth-
ing found its way into the public press. But how far would
the experiment survive the ordeal of repetition? About this
there is much room for doubt. Certainly repetition, unless
in very exceptional circumstances, would not be popular either
with members of Parliament or with the public. Members
prefer to feel, and, as a rule, speak better for feeling that their
speeches are addressed, not merely to the occupants, sometimes
very few, of the benches around them, but to a much larger and
wider public. The public, apart from the small minority who
read or glance at the reports of the debates, are interested in
the descriptive sketches supplied by the observation or imagin-
ation of reporters. How long would secrecy be maintained?
Could it be maintained at all if the rigors of the censorship
now unfortunately imposed by the exigencies of war were re-
laxed? Would not the industry and ingenuity of journalists
soon supply, as in the eighteenth century, reports of debates
in the Parliament of Lilliput, with such additions, suppressions,
embellishments and perversions as might suit the tastes of their
various readers? And, finally, is not publicity of debate of the
very essence of parliamentary government as now understood
and practised in a free country? For these reasons any at-
tempts to restrict that publicity will, it may confidently be
assumed, be scrutinized and criticized with vigilance.

Rather more than five weeks after the secret sittings of the
House of Commons, another private meeting was held within
the precincts of the House. On Friday, June 2, Lord
Kitchener held a conference with members of the House of
Commons, and “ talked with them” as, in simple and biblical
language, is recorded on a memorial tablet placed in the
room where the conference took place. The room was one

>

No. 1) SECRET SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 33

of the large committee rooms in which the standing com-
mittees on public bills usually sit. Any member of the House
of Commons who chose to attend did so, but “ strangers” were
not admitted into the room. The proceedings were quite in-
formal. Mr. Whitley, the chairman of Ways and Means,
took the chair, not in any official capacity, but as a member
with long experience in the duties of a chairman. Lord
Kitchener and some of his war-office colleagues sat beside
the chairman at the table on the dais. Members sat or stood as
they pleased in other parts of the room. About 200 were
present. The chairman explained the object of the meeting,
which was to give the Secretary for War an opportunity of
meeting members of the House in person, supplying them with
information which could not discreetly be given in public, and
answering questions in person instead of through his hard-
worked representative in the House of Commons. Mr. Whitley
put members present on their honor not to reveal what was
said inside the room and to abstain even from taking notes.
Lord Kitchener made a very favorable impression. He spoke
freely, simply and easily, and agreeably surprised those with
whom he had a reputation for aloofness, taciturnity and un-
readiness of speech. When he could answer questions put to
him, he did so without circumlocution or waste of words.
When he could not he explained why. In short, he charmed
his audience and left them under the impression that they
were in the presence of a big, simple and straightforward man.
This was on Friday, June 2. On Monday, June 5, the great
general was engulfed in the waves of the Atlantic.

It is possible that the experiment of June 2 may be more
fruitful than that of April 25-26. Members of Parliament
who have recently visited Paris have come back with the
impression that French deputies are in closer touch with
their ministers, and have fuller and more useful knowl-
edge of the proceedings, proposals and policy of their gov-
ernment than members of the House of Commons at West-
minster. And many of them attribute this closer touch, this
better knowledge, to the existence of such committees or com-
missions on foreign affairs who sit and work in private. Their

~rS

Ae oe

(ee

34 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY {Vot. XXXII

impression may or may not be accurate, and the method of
setting up parliamentary committees on particular subjects may
or may not be a practicable and useful means of establishing
closer touch between members and ministers. But may not
the experience of Lord Kitchener’s conference suggest a
simpler and better method of enabling ministers to take mem-
bers into their confidence than the expedient of setting up
special committees? Why should not the foreign secretary,
for instance, or the war secretary, occasionally express his
willingness to meet at a specified time and place any members
of parliament who desire to see him and to ask questions, it
being understood that the proceedings are to be informal,
private and confidential? There would be no formal appoint-
ment of any committee, no invidious selection of particular
members to the exclusion of others. The proceedings would
be more like those of the deputations consisting of members
and others who are now often received by ministers. It is
stated that Lord Derby, who is now the under secretary of
state of war, and who is a member of the House of Lords,
has expressed his willingness to meet members of the House
of Commons after this fashion, in one of the rooms attached
to that House. It may be that this practice of informal con-
ferences will have useful developments.*

1 The following note, based on an unpublished memorandum prepared by the
sergeant at arms of the House of Commons at the request of the Speaker of
the Cape Parliament, gives the existing arrangements for journalists.

No lobby tickets are issued to the press, but before the commencement of
each session the sergeant at arms prepares a “lobby list” on which appear
the titles of those newspapers and agencies (with the names of their repre-
sentatives) to whom after application the privilege of access to the members’
lobby has been given.

The fact of being on the lobby list does not confer the right of access to
any place reserved for the use of members of parliament, and does not afford
facilities for frequenting any place except the lobby and a small room in the
vicinity which has been set apart for the use of press lobbyists.

These latter approach the lobby by way of a corridor and staircase which
lead from the press-gallery premises, a large suite of rooms containing dining
rooms, tea rooms, smoking rooms and writing-out rooms, given over entirely
to the parliamentary press.

There are two entrances to the chamber. The main entrance is from the

members’ lobby, and is used by the great majority of members. The other is
a small door at the back of the speaker’s chair (at the opposite end of the

No. 1] SECRET SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 35

chamber) which is used principally by ministers whose private rooms are situ-
ated in that part of the building to which the press have no access.

A private member can enter the chamber through this last-mentioned small
door, should he wish to avoid the attentions of the press lobbyists, but there is
no ground for thinking that this is often done for that specific reason.

The lobby list is regulated by the sergeant at arms, acting under the direc-
tions of the Speaker.

The rule is that each newspaper or agency (and no other) having ad-
mission to the press gallery is entitled to one representative in the members’
lobby. If a newspaper or agency has been allotted 3 or 2 seats in the gallery—
é. g. The Times has 3 seats, The Central News has 2—it is entitled to 3 or 2
representatives, respectively, in the lobby.

The following are represented in the press gallery during the present session :
20 London newspapers; 33 Provincial newspapers; 7 Agencies (London); a
total of 60. They have 64 representatives on the Lobby List.

The privilege is personal, and application has to be made by the editor
of a newspaper or the manager of an agency to the sergeant at arms for the
substitution of one representative for another. If the application is approved,
the list, (in the hands of the House of Commons’ police) is altered accord-
ingly by the sergeant at arms.

The sergeant at arms keeps a list of those newspapers and agencies which
have been given the entrée to the press gallery by the Speaker, and also keeps
a waiting. list of newspapers and agencies which desire to be represented in
that gallery. These lists are reviewed by the Speaker from time to time.

Before the commencement of each session the editors and managers of news-
papers and agencies represented during the previous session in the gallery are
requested to apply to the sergeant at arms for the tickets they require for the
ensuing session. No one is admitted to the press-gallery premises without such
a ticket, signed by the sergeant at arms, and bearing on its face the name of
the holder and that of the newspaper represented by him.

With one or two exceptions, the press lobbyists also hold tickets of admission
to the press-gallery premises, from which access is had to the press gallery.

This latter has seating accommodation for only 52 members, 37 boxes being
allocated to certain newspapers and agencies, while the back bench is used by
reporters waiting their turn of duty and by representatives of those newspapers
and agencies to which no definite seat has been assigned. Admission to the
gallery is regulated by messengers in the department of the sergeant at arms.

The parliamentary staffs of the various newspapers and agencies vary in
number from 1 to 17, and the number of press-gallery tickets issued for the
present session is 210. In addition, 17 tickets have been issued to the official
reporters, who prepare the daily report from the press gallery. The total
figure of 227 has varied very little of late years, but every endeavor is made by
the sergeant at arms to keep it as low as possible.

When a division is called in the House, the press lobbyists are excluded,
with all strangers, from the members’ lobby. Until the division is over they
remain in an adjoining corridor.

C. P. ILBERT.
LonpDON, ENGLAND.

i wiles

BALKAN DIPLOMACY. I

N the POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY for March and for
December 1913, the writer discussed the diplomacy of the
two Balkan wars terminated by the Treaty of Bucharest of

August 10, 1913. Sufficient time has elapsed since then to
obtain a fair perspective and to bring the story down to date.

The events that followed the Treaty of Bucharest soon proved
that a generation of experience in subservience to a dominant
nation and in suffering the evils of a deliberate fomenting of
race hatreds had taught the Balkan peoples no lesson in the
wisdom of political toleration. The shifting of geographical
boundaries resulting from the treaty was followed at once by a
shifting of populations resulting from persecutions. Every one
of the Balkan states inaugurated a policy of “ nationalizing” the
new inhabitants that had fallen to it under the terms of the
treaty. Though all of them except Rumania had lost the finest
of their manhood in the two Balkan wars and had burdened
themselves with enormous debts, they at once undertook to
strengthen their military establishments, either to defend their
spoils or to.secure revenge for their losses. The degree to which
they accomplished their aims was restricted only by their
capacity to borrow from any of the great powers.

For a decade before the Balkan wars one of the anxieties of
the Rumanian government had been the patriotic campaign in
Bulgaria to secure Bulgaria irredenta, i. e., the province of Do-
brudja, the majority of the inhabitants of which are Bulgarians.
This province had been given to Rumania by the Treaty of
Berlin of 1878 in exchange for the province of Bessarabia,
which was inhabited chiefly by Rumanians but which had been
demanded and obtained by Russia under the treaty. It was to
secure herself against that danger that Rumania had entered
the second Balkan war and obtained a military boundary of
great strategic value which brought to her 2983 square miles
of territory and 250,000 inhabitants, chiefly Bulgarians, with a

sprinkling of Turks but with few Rumanians. The right of
36

=n

=

BALKAN DIPLOMACY 37

suffrage which the peasants had enjoyed under democratic Bul-
garia and which was denied the peasantry in aristocratic Rumania
was at once withdrawn in the ceded district. Local self-govern-
ment was replaced by Rumanian bureaucracy. Rumanian
priests superseded Bulgarian in the churches, and Bulgarian
schools were compelled to close. Many Bulgarians sacrificed
their property to emigrate to Bulgaria and intensified the hatred
already felt against Rumania. After the Balkan wars Rumania
pursued a wise and independent foreign policy. Though it had
withdrawn from its former attachment to Austria-Hungary, it
had not become a protégé of Russia. The visit of the Czar in
June 1914 was considered an unprecedented honor and empha-
sized the predominant place of Rumania in the Balkans. The
visit was regarded in Germany as an attempt to win Rumania
to the side of the Triple Entente. But Rumania coveted the
land of no other Balkan state and was a factor in favor of peace.
It devoted itself to a policy of domestic reform which bade fair
to result in great improvement in the condition of the masses.
Bulgaria had seen every one of its ambitions ruined, and was
burning for revenge against its enemies. The elections which
were held December 7, 1913, resulted in the defeat of the gov-
ernment which was blamed for the disasters that had befallen
the country. But the new Sobranje was overwhelmingly Rus-
sophobe, and Bulgaria definitely aligned itself with Austria-Hun-
gary. Though a group of French banks were prepared to grant
the Bulgarian government a loan of $100,000,000 on more
favorable terms, the loan was made from German bankers, who
received in return valuable railway and mining concessions. By
means of the money thus obtained strenuous efforts were made
to rehabilitate the army. By the Treaty of Bucharest, Greece
had secured not only Saloniki, but the only other valuable
“Egean port, Kavala. Bulgarian hatred was intensified by the
appearance of thousands of Bulgars driven from Greek Mace-
donia into Bulgaria, and this resulted in similar reprisals upon
Greek residents in Bulgaria. But it was against Serbia that
Bulgarians felt the greatest bitterness. Serbia had broken her
ante-bellum pact with Bulgaria and by the terms of the Treaty
of Bucharest had obtained almost the whole of Macedonia, and

ee re ae ty

POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [Vo.. XXXII

38

was engaged in “ nationalizing” its Bulgarian inhabitants, who
fled by thousands to the mother country.

No one of the combatants had fared so badly in the Balkan
wars as Turkey. She had lost seven-eighths of her European
possessions, which were now reduced practically to a backyard
for Constantinople. Her Asiatic dominions were in a wretched
condition. The thousands of exiled officials and discontented
soldiers who had returned from Macedonia gave cause for great
concern. The Arabs of Syria demanded practically local self-
government, and the Armenians, autonomy. The treasury was
bankrupt and money could be secured from the powers only
by valuable concessions. In the resulting scramble for conces-
sions, Germany, France and Russia secured control of railroad
expansion for the next generation. Turkey resembled a sucked
egg with an unbroken shell. The money secured by the con-
cessions, instead of being used to consolidate Turkey’s Asiatic
possessions and introduce sorely needed domestic reforms,
was spent on the improvement of the army and the navy.
Turkey was now governed by a triumvirate, Enver Pasha, min-
ister of war, Talaat Bey, minister of the interior, and Djemal
Bey, minister of foreign affairs, but of this triumvirate Enver
Pasha was the Augustus. He placed upon the retired list some
300 army officers, among whom were some famous leaders not
considered safe enough adherents of the Committee of Union
and Progress. He was, moreover, a pro-German and, despite
the protests of Russia, invited General Liman von Sanders and
a group of German officers to reorganize the army. The gen-
eral soon became the guiding spirit of the Supreme Council of
War. The government also invited a British naval commission
to reorganize the navy, and two dreadnoughts were ordered
built in England. Convinced that the Balkan Federation had
been the work of Russia, and influenced by the skilful diplo-
macy of Germany, Turkey, while professing an independent
foreign policy, was controlled by the Triple Alliance. But its
immediate foreign policy was dictated by a determination to
secure possession by war, if necessary, of the islands taken by
Greece, and in case of war with Greece it hoped to have the
support of Bulgaria. To pay for the dreadnoughts, a “ patri-

No. 1] BALKAN DIPLOMACY 39

otic” loan was started to which all wealthy Greeks in Turkey
were “invited” to contribute. Thousands of poor Greeks were
compelled to emigrate penniless from recovered Thrace and
from Asia Minor to make way for the thousands of Turks who
were expelled, the Turkish government maintained, from the
part of Macedonia secured by Greece by the terms of the Treaty
of Bucharest. The question of the A®gean islands had been
relegated for solution to the Concert of Europe by the Treaty
of London, but Turkey had little respect for the Concert and
determined to defy it in this crisis as she had successfully defied
it in the Adrianople affair. And she was right. The “ voice
of Europe,” as the Concert was called, could give utterance
only when the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente were
united, and that was seldom the case. It fell again to Rumania
to play the part of dea ex machina. Determined to maintain
the Treaty of Bucharest by which she had profited and ac-
quired such great prestige, she warned Turkey that in case of
war between Turkey and Greece she would not see Greece
humiliated, and she was supported by Serbia in this action.
This relieved the tension between Turkey and Greece, and on
November 11, 1913, the Treaty of Athens was signed. It dis-
posed of many troublesome problems of domicile, nationality,
property, and religion, but did not mention the islands.

Greece had fared better than any other combatant in the
Balkan wars. She had almost doubled her territory and popu-
lation, had acquired the greatest prize of the war, Saloniki, had
secured possession of the rich tobacco-raising country around
Drama and Seres with its port, Kavala, and had occupied the
islands of the A®gean for which Greeks had always longed.
On December 13, 1913, Great Britain recommended to the
Powers that except for Imbros and Tenedos, which controlled
the entrance to the Dardanelles, Greece should retain the islands
occupied by her troops, including those, like Mitylene and
Chios, along the coast of Asiatic Turkey. Despite Turkey’s
announcement that she would never consent to such an arrange-
ment, even her friends of the Triple Alliance consented to this
solution of the Aigean-islands problem. Greece had hoped to
secure also the islands taken by Italy during the Italo-Turkish

supper ees

—

ht eh. stan AT

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40 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (VoL. XXXII

war, which were to be restored by Italy, according to the Treaty
of Lausanne, when certain conditions respecting Tripoli were
fulfilled by Turkey. But Italy gave no evidence of intention
to relinquish them, and was greatly disturbed by the increase
of power and prestige made by Greece in the eastern Mediter-
ranean. It was obvious that Greece was entering upon a great
commercial career and was now in a position to control the
Near-Eastern trade and trade routes which Italy had hoped to
control. The two countries also came into conflict in southern
Albania, inhabited by Epirote Greeks. Though Greek troops
had evacuated the territory at the demand of the Powers, the
rebellion against incorporation with the new state, Albania,
was probably led by Greek officers and financed by Greek
money. Italy had marked out southern Albania with its fine
port of Aviona as her own sphere of influence and was deter-
mined to prevent its acquisition by Greece. The diplomacy of
the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente had been for several
years a struggle for mastery in the Mediterranean. The in-
creasing strength of Greece gave her unusual diplomatic impor-
tance, and both France and Germany made flattering overtures
for friendship. M. Venizelos, the premier, to whose skilful
diplomacy the aggrandizement of Greece had been chiefly due,
leaned to France, which had supported him in securing Kavala
and the region about it. But a bad impression was caused in
France by the speech made by King Constantine while at Pots-
dam attending the German army maneuvers. In this speech he
paid a glowing tribute to German military training.

The new state of Albania was in a wretched condition
when peace finally settled upon the Balkans. The International
Boundary Commissions appointed by the Concert to delimit its
boundaries worked very deliberately in order to draw the
boundary lines according to the races predominating in the
frontier villages. Serbs in the northern districts and Greeks
in the southern immediately began to change the racial com-
plexion of the debatable territory by means of oppression and
expulsion. When the work of the commissions approached
completion the populations of the delimited territory refused
to accept the solution. The Epirotes about Koritza and Arzyro-

Cc ner

ey

<2

[~ ren

—— cae

»

ae,

No. 1] BALKAN DIPLOMACY 41

castro in southern Albania revolted, with a demand for autono-
mous administration of their two provinces, and the new Alban-
ian government had neither troops nor officers with which to
oppose them. The Northern Boundary Commission had given
to Serbia and Montenegro Albanian towns like Dibra and
Djakova which are absolutely necessary to the Albanian peas-
ants in the neighboring mountains for purchase and sale.
Moreover, Serbia and Montenegro began a systematic policy
of expelling Albanians from their new territories, with the
result that thousands of refugees were thrown upon the Albanian
government for support. The International Commission of
Control, composed of a representative of each of the six great
powers and an Albanian, appointed by the powers to assist the
new king, William of Wied, to organize the government, was
so torn with internal jealousies as to nullify the little good that
that impotent prince could accomplish. The Dutch officers
selected by the powers to form a gendarmerie found it impos-
sible to execute the orders of either prince or commission, and
the Albanian chiefs refused to obey anybody. The Moslems,
who formed a large majority of the inhabitants, were represented
in the king’s cabinet by the most influential man in Albania,
Essad Pasha. When Essad raised an army among his co-relig-
ionists to take the field against the Epirote rebels, he was sus-
pected of acting as the agent of the Young Turks who were
spending money lavishly in Albania in the hope of repeating
there their successful coup at Adrianople. The King had him
arrested, therefore, and deported to Italy May 29,1914. A
new rebellion broke out, and the rebels marched upon the
capital, Durazzo. The King fled to an Italian warship and the
rebels demanded of the International Commission of Control
that he abdicate and that the commission appoint a Moslem
ruler in his stead. The commission refused, but as it had only
few forces to operate against the rebels, the country relapsed
into a state of anarchy as bad as that which characterized the
old régime of Abdul Hamid. Nothing operated more to bring
about this condition than the intrigues of Austria-Hungary and
Italy within the new state. While they were united in impos-
ing a noli me tangere policy upon Albania so far as Serbia and

or me

42 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL.. XXXII

Greece were concerned, they were each determined that the other
should not acquire an ascendency. On July 10, 1914, Prince
William made a final appeal to the powers for aid, but the
powers were too much concerned with the Austro-Serbian diffi-
culty to give any attention to the state which they had created
and neglected. Shortly after the outbreak of the Great War,
Prince William, though refusing to abdicate, returned to Ger-
many.

Though Serbia had more than doubled her territory and
largely increased her population, it was with alien peoples—
Bulgarians in the eastern parts of the acquired territory and
Albanians in the western, both of which peoples maintained the
greatest hatred of the Serbs. The Serbs fell back upon the
old principle of government through fear. They organized the
conquered territory under the name of New Serbia, depriving
the inhabitants for ten years of representation in the Skupshtina,
of trial by jury, of freedom of the press or public assembly,
and of local self-government. The measures necessary to Ser-
bize the regions were undertaken through the schools and
churches ; “ disaffected ”’ Bulgarians and Albanians were driven
out by thousands, their land being occupied by Serbs. This
firm policy in domestic matters was paralleled by a vigorous
policy in foreign affairs, directed toward strengthening Serbia
against the enemy across the Danube who by the erection of
the independent state of Albania had prevented the realization
of Serbian hopes of access to the sea. The fine statesmanship
of the premier, M. Pashitch, secured the passage by the Skup-
shtina of a bill authorizing the government to conclude a treaty
with Montenegro forming a military, diplomatic, and customs
union between the two countries. He strengthened the cordial
understanding with Greece by the support he gave in her con-
troversy with Turkey, and secured a commercial treaty which
gave Serbian commerce considerable advantages in using the
port of Saloniki. He concluded an agreement with Rumania
for the building of a great bridge across the Danube better to
improve communication and commerce between the two coun-
tries. In preparation for the struggle with Austria-Hungary
which he was anxious to avoid but which seemed inevitable, he

|

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No. 1] BALKAN DIPLOMACY 43

leaned more and more upon Russia. Serbia was justly regarded
as the point d’ appui of Russian influence in the Balkans.

The constructive work of M. Pashitch was much impeded by
the military clique whose prestige and arrogance had been
largely increased by the success of the army in the Balkan wars.
Army officers were most influential in the Narodna Obrana
(National Union) which conducted Pan-Serbian conspiracies
in Bosnia and Herzegovina with the aim of uniting them to
“Mother” Serbia. This agitation was particularly obnoxious
to the Austro-Hungarian heir-apparent, the Archduke Franz
Ferdinand, who was a real friend of the Slavs of the Dual Mon-
archy. He was known to favor the organization of the Haps-
burg dominions into a federal empire instead of a dual monarchy
in order to place the Slavs upon an equal footing with the
Germans and the Magyars. Hence his very efforts to concili-
ate the discontented Slavs within the empire made him a dan-
gerous enemy to the Pan-Serbian cause. Moreover, he was
hated by the Serbians as the instigator of the coup of 1908,
whereby Bosnia and Herzegovina were annexed to Austria-
Hungary, and he was known to favor for the Dual Monarchy
a vigorous foreign policy which included spreading Austro-
Hungarian influence in the Balkans.

On June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand and his consort while
upon a visit of military inspection were assassinated at Sera-
jevo, the capital of Bosnia, by a young native of Herzegovina
who had recently returned from Belgrade fired with hatred of
Austria-Hungary. To the Austro-Hungarians the assassination
of the heir-apparent was but the last of a series of political
crimes directed from Belgrade and having as their purpose the
disruption of their empire. Anti-Serb riots broke out in many
places throughout the Dual Monarchy, and a most bitter news-
paper campaign was urged against what the Austro-Hungarians
regarded as an anarchic little state made vain by its recent
victories in the Balkan war and obsessed with ambition to
expand at Austrian expense. The semi-official Vienna Fremden-
blatt demanded punitive action at once against a state that had
deliberately ‘“‘ covered herself with a network of societies which,
with the pretext of fostering culture, preached the doctrine of

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44 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (VoL. XXXII

hatred of us throughout the country.” The Serbian press was
equally bitter and provocative, the Belgrade Pravala maintain-
ing that “the only genuine tears shed for the heir-apparent
were those of his children. All others were crocodile tears.”
For almost a month after the crime, the Austro-Hungarian
government maintained a remarkable reserve, but on July 23,
it issued the ultimatum to Serbia which was the occasion of the
great war being waged in Europe at the present time. A care-
ful judicial investigation convinced the government that the
murder of the Archduke had been organized at Belgrade with
the connivance of Serbian state officials, that the bombs and
pistols used for the assassination had come from the Ser-
bian national arms-depot, and that Serbian army officers had
directed the movements of the assassins. The peremptory
nature of this historic document, as well as the character of the
charges made in it, are evidence of the determination of the Aus-
tro-Hungarian government to end once for all Pan-Serbian
plotting against the integrity of the Dual Monarchy. More-
over, the ultimatum was couched in such strong language and
made such unusual demands upon Serbia that no other inference
can be drawn but that compliance upon the part of Serbia was
neither expected nor desired.

The main points of the ultimatum necessary to an under-
standing of the situation, and the attitude of the Serbian gov-
ernment toward each of them, may be summarized as follows:

1. That the Serbian government give a formal assurance
that it condemns Serbian propaganda against the Dual Mon-
archy. Accepted.

2. That this condemnation be published on the front page
of the Serbian Official Fournal. Accepted.

3. That the declaration also express regret that Serbian
officers and officials participated in the propaganda against Aus-
tria-Hungary. Accepted.

4. That this declaration be communicated by the King of
Serbia to his army by an order of the day, and that it be pub-
lished in the Official Bulletin of the army. Accepted.

5. That the Serbian government promise to proceed with

No. 1] BALKAN DIPLOMACY 45

the utmost vigor against all who may be guilty of machinations
against Austria-Hungary. Accepted.

6. That all Serbian publications which incite to hatred and
contempt of Austria-Hungary be suppressed. Accepted, with
modifications.

7. That the society called the Morodna Obrana be dissolved,
its means of propaganda be confiscated, and it be prevented
from reorganizing under new names. Accepted.

8. That teachers, text-books, and methods of education in
Serbia which tend to foment feeling against Austria-Hungary
be eliminated. Accepted.

9. That all officers and officials guilty of propaganda against
Austria-Hungary be dismissed from service, the Austro-Hun-
garian government reserving to itself the right to communicate
to Serbia the names and doings of such officers and officials.
Accepted, subject to proof.

10. That representatives of Austria-Hungary assist Serbia in
suppressing in Serbia the movement directed against the terri-
torial integrity of the Dual Monarchy, and take part in the
judicial proceedings on Serbian territory against persons acces-
sory to the Serajevo crime. Rejected.

11. That Serbia furnish the Austro-Hungarian government
explanations of the unjustifiable utterances of high Serbian
officials in Serbia and abroad who have continued to express
themselves in terms of hostility to the Austro-Hungarian gov-
ernment since the crime of June 28. Accepted conditionally.

12. That Serbia signify acceptance of the Austro-Hungarian
demands within 48 hours.

The day after the Austro-Hungarian note was sent to Bel-
grade, i. e., on July 24, it was communicated to the powers, in
the foreign offices of which it created a furore, particularly at
St. Petersburg. There the ultimatum was considered a direct
challenge to Russia. Not the reduction of Serbia to a position
of vassalage, but the destruction of Russian influence in the
Balkans, was regarded as the real purpose of the note. And
Russia could not see the patient work of a century destroyed
without acting. Her diplomatic policy was to insist that the

Se

POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

[Vo., XXXII

46

quarrel between Serbia and Austria-Hungary was not a matter
between themselves which concerned no other power. On the
contrary, it was a European matter which should be submitted
to the Court of Europe, where claims other than those of
Austria-Hungary should be heard. In this position Russia was
supported by Great Britain and France, but it was the very
position that Austria-Hungary was determined should not pre-
vail, and she was backed up in her attitude by her ally, Ger-
many. The Balkan wars had almost ruined the fruit of two
decades of German diplomacy. Before 1912, Germany had
become the dominant power at Constantinople, and she was in
process of making her sphere of influence throughout Asia
Minor exclusive. By acquiring possession of the Bagdad Rail-
way she had secured an unrivaled route from Constantinople to
the Persian Gulf, but for complete success it was necessary to
control the route from Vienna to Constantinople. As long as
the integrity of Turkey in Europe was maintained and the
Turkish Sanjak of Novi Bazar separated Serbia from Monte-
negro, the possibility of securing control of that route remained.
But when Turkey was eliminated as a European power and the
boundaries of Serbia and Montenegro became coterminous,
the bridge to Asia Minor was closed and a Slavic barrier to her
economic control of the Near East was erected. Moreover, to
German as to Austro-Hungarian statesmen, Serbia was but a
tool of Russia, and a Greater Serbia meant practically the en-
circling of Germany upon the south as well as upon the east by
the power whose economic and military consolidation was al-
ready a source of alarm. For Germany, every consideration
demanded that she support her ally in reducing Serbia to eco-
nomic if not to political vassalage. Hence the request of M.
Sazonov, the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, for a time-
extension of the ultimatum, a request supported by Great
Britain and France, was coldly received by Germany and met
with a curt refusal from the Austro-Hungarian foreign minister.

At the expiration of the time-limit of the ultimatum, July
25, the Serbian reply, probably inspired at St. Petersburg,
was handed to the Austro-Hungarian minister at Belgrade.
Most of the demands were accepted, but upon three points the
Serbian government demurred,

No. 1] BALKAN DIPLOMACY 47

1. While expressing willingness to suppress publications
which maintained a propaganda against Austria-Hungary, it
stated that it could not proceed until it secured a revision of
the constitution which would permit the enactment of a new
press law by the Skupshtina.

2. It could not permit Austro-Hungarian delegates to parti-
cipate in the suppression of movements in Serbia directed
against their country, as that would be a practical abdication
of national sovereignty.

3. For a similar reason, it could not allow the co-operation
of special delegates of the Austro-Hungarian government in
the investigation of the Serajevo crime. However, “in case
the Austro-Hungarian government should not consider itself
satisfied with this answer, it [the Serbian government] is ready
as always to accept a peaceful solution, either by referring the
decision of this question to the International Tribunal at The
Hague, or by leaving it to the Great Powers who co-operated
in the preparation of the explanation given by the Serbian gov-
ernment, on the 18-31 of March, 1909.”

The reply was at once rejected at Vienna, where it was pub-
lished by the government with a running commentary to prove
it evasive, insincere and dishonest. The attitude of the most
influential Austro-Hungarian and German newspapers is perhaps
typified in the statement of the Fremdendlatt of July 26, that
“there can be neither mediation nor arbitration.” The fact
was that the Central Powers considered the time peculiarly
opportune for a successful coup in the Balkans. Difficulties
beset all the members of the Triple Entente. The British gov-
ernment apparently faced the problem of civil war in Ireland.
France was torn by the bitter Caillaux controversy and the
agitation against the three-year service law. The Russian gov-
ernment was confronted by great strikes at St. Petersburg and
other large cities. Moreover, three times within five years had
Russia yielded before the menaces of Germany—in 1909, when
a threat of the Kaiser to stand ‘‘in shining armor” beside his
ally compelled Russia to agree to the Austro-Hungarian annex-
ation of Bosnia and Herzegovina; in 1912, when Russia was
forced to agree to the exclusion of Serbia from the seaboard

POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (Vor, XXXII

48

of the Adriatic; and in 1913, when she was forced to see
Montenegro compelled to relinquish Scutari. Undoubtedly,
official Berlin expected Russia once more to yield, for the Ger-
man secretary of state and the Austro-Hungarian ambassador
at Berlin both stated that Russia neither desired war nor was
prepared for it. This expectation explains the failure of Sir
Edward Grey’s proposal of July 27, to open a European confer-
ence at London. The declaration of war against Serbia by
Austria-Hungary was made the following day, July 28, 1914.

At the outbreak of hostilities between the Central Powers
and the Triple Entente, all the Balkan states except Serbia pro-
claimed their neutrality. This was not done with the intention
of maintaining neutrality. All of them had had their lust for
territory whetted by war, and each now adopted a policy of
“watchful waiting,” of waiting for the propitious moment when
it could enter the war and secure the greatest return in territory
for the least expenditure in men and treasure. Each of the
Balkan capitals became the scene of an intense diplomatic
struggle between the representatives of the Central Powers and
of the Triple Entente. The struggle was characterized first
by the manner in which the fortunes of both groups of com-
batants rose and fell at the Balkan capitals in accordance with
their success and failure on the battlefield, and second, by the
amazing blunders of the Entente diplomacy. At the beginning
of the war, Greece and Rumania leaned to the Triple Entente,
whereas Turkey and Bulgaria favored the Central Powers; still,
the aid of none of them was to be determined by sympathy,
but by the greatest guid pro quo.

The war was but a week old when Turkey called to the colors
all men between the ages of twenty-five and forty-five. The
Young Turks in control of the government were determined to
profit territorially by the European struggle, and it was prac-
tically a foregone conclusion upon which side Turkey would
take her stand. Though England had once been willing to
fight for the maintenance of the Ottoman Empire, that status
was no longer vital to her, since she had secured the control of
Egypt and thereby safeguarded the route to India. Moreover,
she was now allied to Russia, whose traditional policy was to

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No. 1] BALKAN DIPLOMACY 49

secure an early demise of the Sick Man. But the chief reason
why Turkey was almost sure to side with the Central Powers
was that whereas the Entente could offer only the maintenance
of Turkey’s territorial integrity in return for neutrality, the
Central Powers could offer territorial aggrandizement in return
for assistance. Early in August, Sir L. Mallet, the British
ambassador, assured the Porte that the Entente would guaran-
tee the status guo, were Turkey to remain neutral. At the
same time the German ambassador was promising the restora-
tion of Egypt to Turkey in return for Turkish alignment with
the Central Powers. Events moved rapidly and favorably for
the Central Powers. As soon as war broke out, Great Britain
laid an embargo on the two warships that had just been com-
pleted in British shipyards for the Turkish government, and
this action gave the greatest offense at Constantinople. On Aug-
ust 10 the German warships ‘“‘ Goeben” and “ Breslau” escaped
from the Entente fleets in the Mediterranean and arrived at the
Golden Horn. International law required that they either be
compelled to put out to sea or be dismantled and interned.
Instead, the Porte shortly announced that the government had
bought both vessels from Germany. It afterwards informed
Great Britain that the action was necessary to Turkey’s defense
because of Great Britain’s unfriendly seizure of the two vessels
under construction for Turkey in British shipyards. Moreover,
in defiance of protests from the Entente powers, the German
crews, engineers and gunners, instead of being sent home, were
retained as parts of the Turkish navy. As early as August 29,
Sir L. Mallet informed Sir Edward Grey: ‘There are grounds
for thinking that the Germans are urging the Turks to send the
‘Goeben’ and the ‘Breslau’ into the Black Sea where, they
would argue, they had a right to go as Turkish ships. The Ger-
mans would count upon Russian warships attacking them, and
war would ensue, seemingly provoked by Russia.”” Exactly two
months later, on October 29, the event predicted took place.
On September 10, the Young Turks determined to take advan-
tage of a divided Europe to denounce the Capitulations, viz.,
the treaties with foreign powers which limited the sovereignty
of Turkey by granting to the nationals of the foreign powers

50 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (Vor. XXXII

privileges denied to native citizens. As Turkish legal admin-
istration is so corrupt that domicile and business in Turkey for
foreigners would be impossible without the Capitulations, this
action was received with strong protest by the United States
and some of the other foreign powers.

In the meantime, a vigorous propaganda was carried on
by German agents in Constantinople to influence public opin-
ion. The subsidized press was bitterly anti-Entente, and pub-
lished roseate reports of the German victories. As early as
August 28, Mr. Cheetham, the British agent at Cairo, tele-
graphed to Sir Edward Grey that Ottoman forces were mobiliz-
ing in the direction of the Red Sea and that Ottoman emissaries
were stirring up feeling in Egypt against Great Britain. On
September 28, the Entente received a severe blow when the
Porte notified the powers that the Dardanelles were closed.
But the failure of the German advance upon Paris, and the great
defeat of the Austro-Hungarians in Galicia had a calming
influence upon the Turkish jingoes, and official neutrality was
maintained. The Germans in Constantinople were determined,
however, that Turkey should enter the war on the side of the
Central Powers. The stakes were too high to admit of defeat.
The extreme forbearance displayed by the British and French
in the face of Turkish duplicity and insolence was due to their
fear of the consequences that a rupture with Turkey might
have upon their Mohammedan possessions. The Germans, on
the other hand, hoped for a Holy War. The entrance of Tur-
key into the war upon the side of the Central Powers would
keep a British army in Egypt to maintain the safety of the
Suez Canal and to prevent any uprising. It would also detain
a Russian army in Asia to withstand a Turkish advance into
Russian Transcaucasia. On October 29, Turkish naval vessels
commanded by German officers suddenly bombarded several
Russian Black Sea ports, including Odessa. The following day,
the Turkish minister of marine assured the British ambassador
that the attack had not been ordered by the government. The
naval officers had acted either upon their own initiative or upon
orders from Enver Pasha, in whose hands the government
practically rested. At any rate, the explanations of the gov-

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No. 1] BALKAN DIPLOMACY 51

ernment could not placate Russia, which announced that it con-
sidered these hostile acts as inaugurating a war by Turkey upon
Russia. Russia had no such reasons as England and France
for patience with Turkey. The closing of the Dardanelles had
already brought great distress to southern Russia, from which
exports of wheat and oil had been rendered almost impossible.
War with Turkey could hardly add to that injury. It might
enable Russia finally to attain her great ambition, the possession
of Constantinople.

In accordance with the Pact of London of September 5, 1914,
whereby Great Britain, France and Russia converted the En-
tente into an alliance and informed the world that they would
present a united front against their enemies and not conclude
peace until their common purpose had been accomplished,
Great Britain and France declared war upon Turkey, Novem-
ber 5. At the same time Cyprus, which had been administered
by Great Britain under the Treaty of Berlin since 1878, was
formally annexed to the British Empire on December 25. The
Khedive of Egypt, Abbas Hilmi, who was in Turkey at the
beginning of the war and who supported the Young Turks in
their attitude toward the Entente, was deposed. Egypt, which
was nominally a vassal state of Turkey, was declared inde-
pendent of Turkey and was made a protectorate of Great
Britain. The uncle of the deposed Khedive, Prince Hussein,
was placed upon the throne with the title of Sultan of Egypt.
Thus certain anomalies in the British imperial system were
removed. But the first diplomatic struggle in the Balkans had
ended, as was foreseen, in favor of the Central Powers.

The full value of this diplomatic victory could not be real-
ized, however, so long as Turkey was separated from the Cen-
tral Powers by neutral and hostile territory. The Austrian
campaign in Serbia after an initial success had culminated in
absolute failure. The significance of this fact, of Russian suc-
cess in Galicia, and of the German failure to secure a decisive
victory in the West, was fully realized in Sofia. The year 1914
passed, and Bulgaria remained neutral. King Ferdinand and
the majority of Bulgarian statesmen were pro-German, but there
was an influential minority favorable to the Entente Allies. All

52 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [Vot. XXXII

Bulgarian statesmen, however, were agreed that out of the war
Bulgaria should realize the one aim that had animated her since
the second Balkan war. That aim was best expressed by M.
Radoslavoff, the prime minister, as late as July 23: ‘“‘We know
that we shall not always remain neutral. We cannot yet say
with whom we shall side, but we know more or less in what
direction our energies will be directed. We shall fight solely
in accordance with our national interests. We wish to tear up
the odious Treaty of Bucharest.” Bulgaria would side with the
group which would enable her to realize that aim and thereby
secure the territory she had lost in the second Balkan war.
Entente diplomacy set for itself the hopeless task, first of re-
constituting the Balkan Confederation by securing satisfactory
concessions to Bulgaria from the other Balkan states, and sec-
ond of securing the adhesion of the Confederation to the Triple
Entente. It failed to satisfy Bulgaria, and gradually alienated
Greece and Rumania. On the other hand, the Central Powers
were able to make definite offers to Bulgaria, viz., the restora-
tion of Macedonia, and their good offices to secure concessions
from their ally, Turkey.

Upon the entrance of Turkey into the war, M. Radoslavoff
re-afirmed the determination of Bulgaria to remain neutral
during the war. This did not prevent him, however, from
frankly and openly entering into negotiations with both groups
of combatants, having the best possible bargain asanaim. He
conducted these negotiations most skilfully. Long after he had
determined, in July 1915, to throw in his lot with the Central
Powers, the Entente diplomats were hopeful of success despite
a succession of events which should have shown them that they
were being outbidden by their opponents. Early in February,
the Bulgarian government entered into an agreement with the
Disconto Gesellschaft whereby Bulgaria received an immediate
advance of $30,000,000 upon the $100,000,000 loan negotiated
with German bankers just before the outbreak of the war. M.
Radoslavoff made a public statement to the effect that the loan
had not in any way committed Bulgaria to the Central Powers.
It impelled the Entente diplomats, however, to redouble their
efforts. Possibly because of greater familiarity with the methods

No. 1] BALKAN DIPLOMACY 53

of Balkan diplomacy, the Greek and Rumanian statesmen viewed
the German loan to Bulgaria with a marked suspicion that Bul-
garia had decided to adhere to the Teutonic cause, and received
the Entente’s proposals with waning enthusiasm. Serbia, from
whom great concessions would have had to come, to keep her
old enemy Bulgaria from joining the Teutons against her, had
never been willing to cede any territory, and now greeted the
advances of the Entente with an emphatic non possumus. By
the beginning of 1915 not an Austro-Hungarian soldier re-
mained upon Serbian territory. Serbian patriots, instead of
thinking of the diminution of their country’s territory, were
discussing the boundaries of the Magna Serbia which they
hoped to realize. In the midst of the negotiations, which drag-
ged along, a frontier incident took place which threatened to
destroy all possibility of an agreement between Bulgaria and
Serbia. On April 2,a band of Bulgarian comitadjis, according
to the Serbian government, wearing Bulgarian uniforms and
carrying Bulgarian official arms, crossed the frontier and at-
tacked the Serbian guards at Valandova, killing sixty of them.
The Serbians insisted that the incident was an attempt to cut
their railroad communications with Saloniki, upon which they
had to rely for military supplies of all kinds. The Bulgarian
government denied any previous knowledge of the affair and
asserted that the band was not composed of Bulgarians, but
of discontented Turks of Serbian Macedonia driven to revolt
by the harshness of the Serbian government in its determina-
tion to “ nationalize”’ its newly acquired citizens. Though the
incident was smoothed over by the efforts of Russia, it resulted
temporarily in a cessation of negotiations.

In the meantime, the Triple Entente had determined upon a
bold move to convince the Balkan states of the wisdom of join-
ing the Entente and to secure the immediate adhesion of Italy,
rendered irresolute by the skilful diplomacy of Prince von
Biilow, the special envoy of Germany at Rome. This move
was the Dardanelles campaign, brilliantly conceived, but executed
with amazing stupidity. Had it been successful, the military
and diplomatic consequences for the Entente Allies would have
been incalculable. It would have practically eliminated Turkey

54 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [Vo.. XXXII

from the war and thereby relieved Egypt from all danger of
attack. It would have opened the Straits to the passage of
Russian ships with their cargoes of foodstuffs and oil, so badly
needed in France and England, and to French and English
ships with their cargoes of munitions without which the Rus-
sians could not hope for success. But above all, it would un-
doubtedly have won the wavering Balkan States to the Entente
and thereby completed the ring encircling the Central Powers.
Bulgaria in particular might have expected the retrocession of
Adrianople and of all Thrace in addition to the concessions
the Entente diplomats were seeking for her from the other
Balkan states. Early in February, a powerful Entente fleet
undertook to force the Dardanelles without the assistance of
land forces. This was soon discovered to be impossible, and
on March 17 Sir Ian Hamilton arrived at the island of Tenedos
near the entrance to the Straits, where a military expedition
had been assembled with the tacit consent of Greece. This
military force was to land upon the Gallipoli peninsula and
attack the fortifications in the rear while the fleet bombarded
them from the Straits. But General Hamilton found that great
mistakes had been made in the equipment of the transports and
ordered them back to Egypt to unload and reload. The five
weeks thus lost to the Entente Allies were devoted by the Turks,
under the supervision of German engineers, to rendering the
peninsula impregnable. When the Anglo-French expeditionary
force of 120,000 on April 25 began its attack, it was opposed
by an army at least twice as large, ensconced behind impreg-
nable positions and commanded by the skilful Liman von
Sanders. The gains of the expeditionary forces were negligibie,
and were made with such appalling losses that by July the failure
of the Dardanelles campaign was evident. The British govern-
ment refused to acknowledge this until after the visit of Earl
Kitchener to Gallipoli in October. But the debacle was known
and appreciated at every Balkan capital early in the summer.
The failure of the Anglo-French “ drive” in the Champagne in
September and October increased the diffidence with which
Balkan statesmen received Entente overtures for an alliance.

While Entente diplomacy was estranging the other Balkan

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No. 1] BALKAN DIPLOMACY 55

states by its insistence upon their making concessions to Bul-
garia, and the Entente military was losing prestige through its
evident inferiority to that of the Central Powers, the latter coun-
tries were winning splendid successes both in the field and at
court. In May and June, von Mackensen drove the Russians
in headlong rout from Galicia. In August and September, von
Hindenburg’s great “ drive” resulted in the capture of Warsaw
and the expulsion of the Russians from Poland. At the same
time, German diplomacy was using every effort to secure a satis-
factory agreement between Turkey and Bulgaria about the
Dedeagatch railroad. When the Young Turks regained Adri-
anople, they secured for strategic reasons a large slice of terri-
tory opposite to it, on the west bank of the Maritza river.
North and south of that exclave, the Maritza was the boundary
between Turkey and Bulgaria. Hence the Dedeagatch railroad,
which ran parallel to the river and connected the interior of
Bulgaria with its sole port on the A®gean sea, Dedeagatch,
passed through Turkish territory. Bulgaria was exceedingly
anxious to secure this slice of territory, but Turkey was just as
reluctant to accede to its request. On July 23, it was unofficially
announced that an agreement between the two countries had
been reached. This caused the Entente diplomats to redouble
their efforts. When the Serbian Skupshtina convened on
August 16, a secret session was ordered to consider the pro-
posals of the Entente for the reconstruction of the Balkan Con-
federation. The proposals of the Entente have never been
officially published, but from unofficial sources it is reasonable
to infer that they included the cession to Bulgaria of the greater
part of Macedonia. The decision of the Skupshtina was not
made public, but it was generally believed that the Entente pro-
posals were accepted upon the advice of M. Pashitch.

Serbian statesmen had reason to be alarmed in August 1915.
After the expulsion of the Austro- Hungarian armies from Serbia
in December 1914, no further attempt was made to invade
Serbia. This was due to the different interpretations of Article
VII of the Triple Alliance made by Italy and Austria-Hungary.
That article provided:

56 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (VoL. XXXII

If the maintenance of the s/a¢us guo in the Balkans or on the Ottoman
coast and islands in the Adriatic and A<gean Seas should become im-
possible, and, either on account of action by a third power or in any
other manner, Austria-Hungary or Italy should be obliged to change
the s/atus guo by temporary or permanent occupation on their part,
then such occupation is to take place only after a previous agreement
between the two powers, which is to be based upon the principle of
mutual compensation for all territorial or other advantages derived.

Baron Sonnino, who had succeeded the more complaisant San
Giuliano as Italian minister of foreign affairs, maintained that
the invasion of Serbia by Austro-Hungarian armies would con-
stitute a “temporary occupation” which would change the
status quo in the Balkans, and under the treaty such action
might not be taken except “after a previous agreement... .
based upon the principle of mutual compensation.” He noti-
fied Austria-Hungary that an invasion of Serbia would be inter-
preted by Italy as a violation of the provisions of the Triple
Alliance which would justify Italy in resuming her full liberty
of action. Hence as long as the diplomatic negotiations be-
tween Italy and Austria-Hungary concerning mutual compen-
sations were continued, Serbia was safe from invasion. But
the negotiations fell through, and Italy renounced the Triple
Alliance, May 23. During July, rumors reached Belgrade
of the massing of German and Austro-Hungarian troops across
the Danube. This accounts for the greater willingness of the
Serbs to listen to the proposals of the Entente.

Having previously secured the consent of M. Pashitch and
M. Venizelos to the concessions thought to be necessary to
placate Bulgaria, the Entente diplomats, on August 10, delivered
a joint note at Sofia containing them. Later developments
showed that they included the relinquishment of the greater
part of Macedonia by Serbia, and of the Kavala district by
Greece. On the day before, Bulgaria had secured another loan
of $50,000,000 from the Disconto Gesellschaft. M. Radosla-
voff merely used the Entente proposals to hasten the decis-
ion of the Turks on the question of the Dedeagatch railroad,
and this was made on August 23, to the complete satisfaction
of Bulgaria. Turkey ceded to Bulgaria the Turkish portion of

4

No. 1] BALKAN DIPLOMACY 57

the Dedeagatch railroad, together with all the territory hitherto
Turkish west of the Maritza, almost 1000 square miles in ex-
tent. Additional evidence of the attitude of Bulgaria was given
in a statement issued by the government on September 1 to
the Associated Press. The statement frankly said that the
chief factor determining Bulgaria’s action would be the revision
of the Treaty of Bucharest, but “a revision of such a nature
that no betrayal afterward would be possible.” The Entente
Powers wished to make the cession of Macedonia to Bulgaria
conditional on the extent of compensation that it would be
possible to give to Serbia at the end of the war. The Bulgar-
ians did not believe that the Entente could actually secure from
Serbia and Greece the proposed concessions, and they were
not to be satisfied with promises. The real intention of Bul-
garia could no longer be concealed. German officers in large
numbers were to be seen at the Ministry of War and on the
staff of the army. Any lingering doubt was removed on Sep-
tember 16, when M. Radoslavoff, in reply to a note from the
Entente Powers, admitted that Bulgaria had promised Turkey
to maintain ‘‘ armed neutrality.” The mobilization of the army
necessary to maintain ‘‘ armed neutrality” was ordered Septem-
ber 21. Noone was deceived by the statement of the gov-
ernment that the mobilization was not directed againt Serbia or
Greece, but was ‘“‘ merely a preventive measure in view of the
threatened Austro-German invasion of the Balkans.” On Sep-
tember 28, Sir Edward Grey in the House of Commons, issued
a warning to Bulgaria, and on October 3, Russia sent an ulti-
matum to Sofia, which while stating that “ Russia is bound to
Bulgaria by the imperishable memory of her liberation from
the Turkish yoke,” nevertheless gave her but twenty-four hours
to “break with the enemies of the Slav cause and of Russia.”
But Bulgaria had counted the cost, had concluded that nothing
was to be feared from the Entente Powers, and that her national
aspirations were to be obtained by an alliance with the Central
Powers. On October 13, the Bulgarians entered Serbia from
the east, with the intention of forming a junction with the Aus-
tro-German armies under von Mackensen, which had already
entered Serbia from the north and west.

POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

[VoL, XXXII

58

The reason for the intense struggle of the two warring groups
to win Bulgaria can readily be appreciated. Bulgaria occupied
a position of importance out of all proportion to her size,
strength or resources. To throw in her lot with the Central
Powers meant to delay the decision of any other Balkan state
to side with the Entente Allies if not to prevent it entirely, for
Bulgaria could fall upon its flank or rear. But the Central
Powers would reap more positive benefits than that. In Sep-
tember, the Turks had been insistent in their @emands for aid
from Germany, especially in the matter of munitions. These
could now be rushed to them, a fact that would definitely seal
the doom of the Gallipoli expedition and release a large Turkish
army for operations elsewhere. The most valuable return to
Germany, however, of her success in Bulgaria consisted in the
bridging of the gap between Austria-Hungary and Turkey. It
is true that Bulgaria was separated from the Danube by a small
area of northeastern Serbia, but that obstacle could easily be
removed. Then the route from Hamburg to Bagdad would be
complete. A new commercial empire of Middle Europe would
be formed, dependent upon Germany and absolutely independ-
ent of sea power. Thus would Germany thwart Great Britain
and find her “ place in the sun” in Asia Minor with the Balkans
in economic vassalage to her. For her future, the possession
of the mountainous district of northeastern Serbia is far more
important than the possession of Belgium, and she would today
probably be willing to trade the latter for it.

But Serbia was not yet conquered. Would the Entente
Allies permit her to be conquered? Making all allowances for
their disappointment of the Greek assistance expected under
the terms of the Serbo-Greek Treaty of 1913, nothing so low-
ered the prestige of the Entente Allies in the estimation of the
Balkan peoples as the abandonment of Serbia to her fate.
They were certainly not lacking in warnings. On November
16, Sir Edward Grey admitted that as early as July 9 the Serbian
Minister to Great Britain had suggested that British troops be
sent to Serbia. In the issue of the London 7imes of August
27, appeared a remarkable statement from that paper’s Balkan
correspondent describing the congestion on the Austro-Hun-

No. 1] BALKAN DIPLOMACY 59

garian railroads due to the massing of troops along the Danube,
prophesying with astonishing accuracy the plan of campaign
that was about to be undertaken against Serbia, and stating that
there could be hardly any doubt that Bulgaria would participate
in the campaign. Sir Edward Grey’s solemn warning to Bul-
garia, made on September 24, was to the effect that “ if Bulgaria
assumed an aggressive attitude on the side of the enemies of
this country, we should give our friends in the Balkans all the
support in our power in a manner that would be most welcome
to them in concert with our Allies without reserve and without
qualification.” Yet not a soldier of the Entente Allies landed
at Saloniki until October 5, and General Sarrail arrived only on
October 15. When the Allied army did undertake operations
it was with such a small force that the attempt to relieve Serbia
ended in ignominious failure. At the same time a large Allied
army was wasting its strength on Gallipoli, though insistent de-
mands had already been made in France and England for the
relinquishment of the expedition. That the Serbian failure was
not due to ignorance of conditions was made evident by the
resignation on October 13 of M. Delcassé from the French
cabinet, and on October 18 of Sir Edward Carson from the
English cabinet, because of dissatisfaction with the handling of
the Serbian matter. Sir Edward Carson did not hesitate to
say, that throughout “ the cabinet had not known its own mind.”
In fact, the abandonment of Serbia was but one instance of the
lamentable indecision that characterized the activities of the
Entente Allies, due partly to their divergent interests and partly
to the lack of unity in their high command.

At the beginning of the war, the sympathies of Turkey and
Bulgaria were with the Central Powers, and the latter had secured
their alliance by October 1915. Similarly, at the beginning of
the war the sympathies of Greece and Rumania were with the
Entente Allies. The latter would maintain the diplomatic
balance by securing the alliance of these two states. The
measure of their success in these negotiations will be indicated
in the concluding article.

[Zo be concluded |

STEPHEN P. DUGGAN.
THE COLLEGE OF THE CiTY OF NEW YorK.

THE UPRISING AGAINST THE EAST INDIA
COMPANY

N March 1770 the Townshend duties were repealed by Par-
liament, except the tax on tea, which was retained, so
said the king, because ‘‘ there must always be one tax to

keep up the right.”* The news of the partial repeal caused
great rejoicing in the great trading towns in the colonies, and
the non-importation agreements, which had been launched
against the Townshend taxes, were modified to operate against
dutied tea only.3 Then followed nearly two years of calm, un-
ruffled by any further act of aggression from the home govern-
ment or the colonists. The historian has not unnaturally as-
sumed that the Americans, true to their professions, were engaged
during this period in silent and successful enforcement of the
boycott against dutied tea, or in other words, in the establishment
of their hallowed principle of “‘ no taxation without representa-
tion.” It is necessary to determine the validity of this assump-
tion before it is possible to arrive at a correct understanding of
the contest that arose between the colonists and the East India
Company in the fall of 1773.

Only in two parts of British America did the people success-
fully abstain from the importation and use of duty-laden tea
during this period. These places were the chief centers for
tea-smuggling in America, New York and Philadelphia. Un-
embarrassed by the presence of the Board of Customs Com-
missioners, as were their Boston brethren, the enterprising

1 A paper read at the meeting of the American Historical Association in Cincinnati,
December 27, 1916.

?Donne, W. B., Correspondence of George III with Lord North (London, 1867),
I, 202.

5 The merchants of the leading cities acted as follows: New York, July 9; Phila-
delphia, September 20; Baltimore, October 5; Boston, October 12; Charleston,
December 13.

*Contemporaries realized this. Cf, ¢. g., ‘A Tradesman of Philadelphia ’’ in the
Pennsylvania Fournal, August 17, 1774, supplement.

60

UPRISING AGAINST THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 61

merchants of these ports drove a brisk trade with Holland,

Sweden and Germany, and with the Dutch island of St. Eusta-

tius, for contraband tea, powder and other supplies, but partic-
a ularly for the forbidden tea.’

Lieutenant Governor Colden and Lord Dartmouth exchanged
views on the subject, both agreeing in the sentiment that the
illicit trade between New York and Holland prevailed “to an
enormous degree.” * “It is well known,” wrote Samuel Seabury

in 1774, ‘that little or no tea has been entered at the Customs
House for several years. All that is imported is smuggled from
Holland, and the Dutch Islands in the West Indies.”3 Gilbert
’ Barkly, a Philadelphia merchant of sixteen years’ standing,
wrote in May 1773 of the extensive smuggling of tea “from
Holland, France, Sweden, Lisbon &c. St. Eustatia, in the West
, Indies &c.”* Smuggling “has amazingly encreased within
these twenty years past,” asserted “A Tradesman of Phila-
delphia.”5 Hutchinson informed Lord Hillsborough that “ in
New York they import scarce any other than Dutch teas. In
Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, it is little better.”® Since
smuggled tea was cheaper to the consumer than dutied tea and
the profits of the tea-dealer were greater, the systematic neglect
of the dutied article in New York and Philadelphia was as much
in harmony with self-interest as with love of principle, and gave
fair occasion for the coining of the epigram that “a smuggler
and a whig are cousin Germans . . .’”’”
The smuggling merchants experienced little difficulty in
getting their teas into America. There were all the secluded

1 Letters of Thomas Hutchinson in Mass. Archives, xxvii, 317; Boston Gazette,
Nov. 27, Dec. 4, 1775; and New England Chronicle, July 29, 1775.
?N. Y. Col. Docs., VIII, 487, 510-512.

5 Free Thoughts on the Proceedings of the Continental Congress. . . By a Farmer
(1774). Cf. Becker, C., Political Parties in the Province of New York, 1760-1776,

p. 84, n. 158.
| * Drake, F. S., Tea Leaves (Boston, 1884), p. 201.
5 Pennsylvania Fournal, August 17, 1774, supplement.

® Letter of Sept. 10, 1771; Boston Gazette, Nov. 27,1775. Newport probably
ranked next in importance to New York and Philadelphia as a center for tea-smug-
gling. Cf. Drake of. cit., pp. 194-197.
7 «* Massachusettensis”’ in Mass. Gazette and Boston Post-Boy, Jan. 2, 1775.

62 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [Vo.. XXXII

landing-places which a much-indented coastline afforded, and
. | all the tricks which the mind of a resourceful skipper could in-
i vent to deceive the customs officials: There were, furthermore,
customs officials who, from lack of reward from the govern-
ment, did not care to risk ‘“‘ the rage of the people,” * or who,
because of the forehandedness of the smugglers, found rich re-
ward in conniving at the traffic. Colden cited the case of his
grandson, recently appointed surveyor and searcher of the port
of New York, who was given to understand by interested parties
that “if he would not be officious in his Duty, he might depend
upon receiving 41500 a year.” 3

It is difficult, in these days of many tempting non-alcoholic
beverages, to understand the hold of the tea habit on the colo-
nists. The views of some contemporary observers throw some
light on the prevalence of tea drinking as well as the proportion
of imported tea which failed to pay the parliamentary duty.
Governor Hutchinson, who seems to have furnished the brains
for the tea business carried on by his sons at Boston, esti-
mated that the total annual consumption of tea in America
was 19,200 chests or 6,528,000 pounds. For approximately
the same period, the amount of tea that paid the duty was about
320,000 pounds.’ Hutchinson’s estimate was evidently wide of
the mark, for even Samuel Wharton, who gravely averred that
the frontiersmen and many Indians shared the popular habit of
imbibing tea twice a day, placed the total consumption at a

1 £. g., filling the interstices of a lumber cargo with tea, carrying false bills of
lading, and the like; private letters in Public Record Office: C. O. 5, no. 138, pp.
151-152, 175 (Library of Congress Transcripts). C/. the sailing orders of Captain
Hammond for obtaining a tea cargo at Goteborg or Hamburg and for running it past
the customs officials at Newport; Commerce of Rhode Island (7 M. H. S. Colls.,
IX), I, 332-333.

2 Letters of Hutchinson to Hillsborough, Aug. 25 and Sept. 10, 1771, in Boston
Gazette, Nov. 27, 1775.

§Colden Letter-Books (N. Y. Hist. Soc. Colls., 1876, 1877), II, 370-372.

*Letter of Sept. 10, 1771, in Boston Gazette, Nov. 27, 1775.

5The amount of dutied tea imported from Dec. 1, 1770, to Jan. 5, 1772, was
344,771 pounds, according to an abstract prepared in the office of the inspector of
imports and exports and quoted by Channing, E., History of the United States (New
York, 1909—), III, 128 n.

No. 1] UPRISING AGAINST THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 63

million and a half pounds less. The London tea merchant,
William Palmer, judged more dispassionately when he hazarded
a figure about half that named by Hutchinson, remarking that
Hutchinson’s estimate of ‘‘ 19,200 chests is more than has been
hitherto annually imported from China by all foreign compa-
nies.” Assuming Palmer’s conservative figure to be approx-
imately correct, the conclusion would seem valid that in a year
like 1771, marked by unusually large importations of dutied
tea, nine-tenths of the tea consumed was illicitly imported.3
The incentive to smuggling existed in spite of the well-inten-
tioned efforts of the British government. The Townshend Act
of 1767, though imposing a small import duty of 3 d. a pound
in America, had removed all British import duties from teas
exported to America‘ and had thus, fora time at least, reduced
the cost of English tea to the American consumer below that
of the contraband article. This advantageous situation of En-
glish tea could in the nature of things continue only so long
as the wholesale price of the tea in the English market did not
go up, or the price of smuggled tea fall. The former occur-
red. The East India Company, though not permitted to sell
at retail, were permitted to name an upset price at their public
auction sales. Treading the edge of a quicksand of bankruptcy
and obliged by the Act of 1767 to make good any deficiency
in the revenues resulting from the discontinuance of certain tea
duties, the company sought to recoup their losses by advancing
the upset price of tea. Governor Hutchinson wrote to Lord
Hillsborough on August 25, 1771: “If the India company
had continued the sale of their teas at 2s. 2 d. to 2s. 4d. as
they sold two years ago, the Dutch trade would have been over
by this time; but now that the teas are at 3 s. the illicit traders

1«¢ Observations,’’ Pa. Mag. Hist. and Biog., XXV, 140.

? Drake, of. cit., p. 197.

* Hutchinson in 1771 set the figure at nine-tenths for New York and Philadelphia
and five-sixths for Massachusetts; Boston Gazette, Nov. 27, 1775. But he said
elsewhere that the contraband tea consumed at Boston came there by way of New
York and Philadelphia; Mass. Archives, XXII, 317.

*7 Geo. III, c. 56. See Professor Max Farrand’s admirable article, ‘‘ The Taxa-
tion of Tea,’’ Am. Hist. Rev., 111, 266-260.

eh ew ta

POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

64 [Vo.. XXXII

can afford to lose one chest in three... .”’* Meantime, Dutch
teas were selling in Holland at from 18 d. to 2 s. per pound
and paid no import duty into America.? Hutchinson urged
constantly in his business and political correspondence that “ by
some means or other the price of Teas in England to the Ex-
porter ought to be kept nearer to the price in Holland.”

The next act of Parliament dealing with the East India Com-
pany, enacted in June 1772, relieved the company from future
liability for deficiency in the tea revenues but granted a draw-
back of only three-fifths of the English import duties on tea
exported to America instead of a complete reimbursement as
formerly. This act failed to alter the situation materially, so
far as the American dealer in dutied teas was concerned. The
tea smuggler continued to control the situation, particularly at
New York and Philadelphia; and in the period from December
I, 1770, to the termination of the customs service in 1775, only
874 pounds of dutied tea were imported at New York, and 128
pounds at Philadelphia.5

The situation elsewhere was quite different. Not one men-
tion was found in the newspapers of the remaining provinces
of any effort to enforce the non-importation agreement,° nor
did the popular apathy provoke criticism or protest. Even the
arch-radical, John Adams, could confide to his diary on Febru-
ary 14,1771, that he had “dined at Mr. Hancock’s with the
members, Warren, Church, Cooper, &c. and Mr. Harrison, and

1 Boston Gazette, Nov. 27, 1775.

2 Drake, of. cit., pp. 191, 192, 194-197. Hutchinson calculated the cost of land-
ing smuggled tea at five per cent.

* Letters to William Palmer and Lord Hillsborough in Mass. Archives, XXVII,
206-207, and Boston Gazette, Nov. 27 and Dec. 4, 1775. C/., memorial of Barkly,
the Philadelphia merchant, to same purpose; Drake, idi¢., pp. 199-202.

*Geo. III, c. 60. The East India Company were obliged to pay the British gov-
ernment tore than £115,000 as a result of the falling-off of the tea revenues during
the first four years under the act of 1767; Farrand, ‘‘ Taxation of Tea,’’ Am, Hist.
Rev., III, 266-269.

5Channing, History of the United States, III, 128 n.

6 The single recorded instance in any of the thirteen provinces was the case of John
Turner, a New York shopkeeper, who, about six weeks after the New York agree-
ment had been adopted, was detected in the act of selling some dutied tea; WV. Y.
Gazette and Mercury, Aug. 20, 1770.

No. 1] UPRISING AGAINST THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 65

spent the whole afternoon, and drank green tea, from Hol-
land, I hope, but don’t know.”* On January 21, 1772, the
Boston radical, Thomas Cushing, declared that “to place any
great dependence upon the virtue of the people in general, as
to their refraining from the use of any of the duty articles, will
be in vain.” ?

When in the autumn months of 1773 public sentiment under-
went an abrupt and radical change for reasons that will be
discussed later, considerable light was thrown on the state of
public mind that had existed prior to that time. Thus in
August 1774, Robert Findlay was adjudged by the Charles
County, Md., Committee to have “ fully and satisfactorily ex-
culpated himself of any intention to counteract the resolutions
of America” because he showed that his orders for dutied tea
had been sent in the fall of 1773.3 Likewise, T. C. Williams
and Company of Annapolis issued a statement in October 1774,
with reference to the tea consigned to them in the “ Peggy
Stewart,” in which they declared:

When we ordered this tea [in May, 1774], we did nothing more than
our neighbours ; for it is well known that most merchants, both here
and in Baltimore, that ordered fall goods, ordered tea as usual ; and to
our certain knowledge, in the months of April, May and June last,
near thirty chests were imported into this city by different merchants,
and the duties paid without the least opposition. . . . We therefore
think it hard, nay cruel usage, that our characters should be thus
blasted for only doing what most people in this province that are con-
cerned in trade, have likewise done.*

Newspaper references make it clear that the importation of
dutied tea had been carried on during the years 1771-1773 at
Charleston, S. C., with absolutely no attempt at concealment.s
At the public meeting held in December 1773, upon the arrival
of the East India Company’s ship, it was strongly argued that

1 John Adams’ Works (C. F. Adams, ed., Boston, 1856), II, 255.
3 Letter to Roger Sherman; 4 M. H. S. Colls., IV, 358.

3 Md. Gazette, Aug. 11, 1774; also 4 Am. Archives, I, 703-704.
* Md. Gazette, Oct. 27, 1774.

5S. C. Gazette, Nov. 29, Dec. 6, 20, 1773.

66 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (VoL. XXXIT

“Tea had ever been spontaneously imported and the Duty
paid; that every subject had an equal right to send that article
from the Mother Country into their Province, and therefore it
was unreasonable to exclude the Hon. East India Company
from the same privilege.” * Indeed, while the people were still
in session, some dutied teas on board the tea-ship, not owned
by the East India Company, were landed and carted past the
meeting-place to the stores of private merchants! *

These contemporary views are abundantly supported by the
official figures of the British government on the tea importations
into the colonies.3 At Boston, a total of 373,077 pounds of
dutied tea was imported from December I, 1770, to January 5,
1773, without articulate protest from the radicals.* ‘“‘ Three hun-
dred whole and fifty-five half Chests came in Vessels belonging
to Mr. John Hancock the Patriot,” stated the comptroller of
customs at Boston in a letter of September 29, 1773, to John
Pownall, under-secretary of state in the colonial department.5
In the other provinces of this group, the amount of dutied tea
imported from December 1, 1770, to January 5, 1773, was less
in quantity but probably about equal in proportion to their
normal volume of trade. At Rhode Island the quantity of
dutied tea entered was 20,833 pounds; at Patuxent, Maryland,
33,304 pounds; at the various Virginia ports, 79,527 pounds;
at Charleston, 48,540 pounds; and at Savannah, 12,931
pounds. The total for all provinces, always excepting New
York and Pennsylvania, was 580,831 pounds, on which the
duty was paid without arousing comment.

1N. Y. Gazetteer, Dec. 23, 1773.

2 Drayton, J., Memoirs of the American Revolution (Charleston, 1821), I, 98.

8 Abstract prepared in the office of the inspector of imports and exports and quoted
by Channing, of, ci¢., III, 128 n.

*«Q” in the Boston Evening Post, Nov. 15, 1773, declared that 173 different
merchants were concerned in this importation; but a letter from Boston in the Pa.
Packet, Dec. 13, 1773, claimed that the number of importers had been confounded
with the number of importations.

5 Letter of Benjamin Hallowell; Stevens, B. F., Facsimiles, XXIV, no. 2029, p.
5. Acchest contained 340 pounds. John Adams admitted to Dickinson and others
in 1774 that a vessel, partially owned by Hancock, had, he supposed, carried dutied
tea in the period after 1770; John Adams’ Works, II, 381.

|

—

—

——

UPRISING AGAINST THE EAST INDIA COMPANY

No. 1] 67

II

The conclusion seems valid that, from the latter part of 1770
to about the middle of 1773, the sacrosanct principle of “no
taxation without representation ”’ received but a doubtful appli-
cation in two provinces and was totally ignored throughout the
most of British America. What, then, produced a revolution
of sentiment in the leading commercial towns in the fall of 1773
and created a public opinion determined to oppose the intro-
duction of dutied tea at almost any cost?

The chief animating cause was the passage of a new statute
of Parliament, in May 1773, affecting the East India Company.
This act involved no new infringement of the constitutional or
natural rights of the Americans so far as taxation was concerned.
Continuing the 3 d. import duty in America, it provided that a
full drawback of English import duties should be given on all teas
re-shipped to America, thus restoring the arrangement which
had existed under the Townshend Act save for the indemnity
clause. The radical innovation was introduced in the provision
which empowered the East India Company, if they so chose,
to export tea to America or to “foreign parts” from their
warehouses and on their own account, upon obtaining a license
from the commissioners of the treasury.’ In other words, the
East India Company, which hitherto had been required by law
to sell their teas at public auction to merchants for exportation,
were now authorized to become their own exporters and to
establish branch houses in America. This arrangement swept
away, by one stroke, the English merchant who purchased the
tea at the company’s auction and the American merchant who
bought it of the English merchant; for the East India Com-
pany, by dealing directly with the American retailer, eliminated
all the profits which ordinarily accumulated in the passage of
the tea through the hands of the middlemen. From another
point of view, as Joseph Galloway has pointed out,

The consumer of tea in America was obliged to pay only one profit to

the Company, another to the shopkeeper. But before the act, they

‘13 Geo. III, c. 44. Such exportation was to be permitted only when the supply
of tea in the company’s warehouses amounted to at least 10,000,000 pounds.

POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

68 [VoL.. XXXII

usually paid a profit to the Company, to the London merchant, who 4
bought it of the Company and sold it to the American merchant, and
also to the American merchant, besides the profit of the retailer. So
that, by this act, the consumer of this necessary and common article
of subsistence was enabled to purchase it at one-half of its usual
price... .'

It is clear, thus, that the only new element introduced into the
situation by the new act was the provision which made it pos-
sible for the American consumer to buy dutied teas, imported
directly by the East India Company, at a cheaper rate than
dutied teas imported in the customary manner by private mer-
chants or than Dutch teas introduced by the illicit traders.
Therefore, when the colonial press announced in September
1773 that the East India Company had been licensed to export
more than half a million pounds of tea to the four leading ports
of America, an alliance of powerful interests at once appeared
in opposition to the company’s shipments.

As Governor Hutchinson at Boston put it in a letter of Jan-

uary 2, 1774:

Our liberty men had lost their reputation with Philadelphia and New
York, having been importers of Teas from England for three or four
Years past notwithstanding the engagement they had entrd into to
the contrary. As soon as the news came of the intended exportation
of Teas [by the] E. I. Company which must of course put an end to
all Trade in Teas by private Merchants, proposals were made both to
Philadelphia and York for a new Union, and they were readily accepted,
for although no Teas had been imported from England at either of
those places, yet an immense profit had been made by the Importation
from Holland, which wou’d entirely cease if the Teas from the E. I.
Company should be admitted. This was the consideration which en-
gaged all the merchants.’

'Galloway, Historical and Political Reflections on the Rise and Progress of the
American Rebellion (London, 1780), 17-18. For similar statements, cf. **Z’? in
Boston Eve. Post, Oct. 25, 1773, and ‘* Massachusettensis’’ in Mass. Gazette and
Bos, Post- Boy, Jan. 2, 1775.

* Mass. Archives, XXVII, 610. Such also was the view of the anonymous author ms
of The History of the Origin, Rise and Progress of the War in America (reprinted at
Boston, 1780), 74: ‘* All the dealers, both legal and clandestine,. . . saw their
trade taken at once out of their hands. They supposed it would fall into the hands

No. 1] UPRISING AGAINST THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 69

An extended controversy began in newspaper and broadside,
which not only revealed the fundamental antagonism between
the undertaking of the British trading corporation and the in-
terest of the colonial tea merchants, but also pointed out the
far-reaching menace which the new act held for American mer-
chants in general. To broaden the basis of the popular protest,
the old theoretical arguments against the taxing authority of
Parliament were exhumed; and new and bizarre arguments
were invented.

An examination of the propagandist literature and of a few
private letters will bear out this preliminary analysis. Most of
the writings against the tea shipments issued from the print-
shops of Boston, New York and Philadelphia and, with varying
emphasis, covered substantially the same ground. The Charle-
ston newspapers reprinted many of the northern arguments,
and the events there may therefore be said to have been de-
termined in large part by the same sentiments.

At Boston, the newspaper writers laid great stress on the fact
that the legitimate traffic in English teas was assailed with de-
structive competition. ‘A Consistent Patriot” declared that
the new statute would displace the men in the American tea
trade and force them to seek their living elsewhere “ in order
to make room for an East India factor, probably from North-
Britain, to thrive upon what are now the honest gains of our own
Merchants.”* “Surely all the London Merchants trading to
America and all the American Merchants trading with Britain,”
said “ Reclusus,” ‘ must highly resent such a Monopoly, con-
sidered only as it effects their private Interest” and without
regard to the fact that everyone who buys the tea will be pay-
ing tribute to the ‘“‘ harpy Commissioners” and to Parliament;
the newly-appointed tea consignees ‘can’t seriously imagine
that the Merchants will quietly see themselves excluded from a
considerable branch of Trade . . . that they and the odious

of the company’s consignees, to whom they must become in a great measure depend-
ent, if they could hope to trade at all.’’ Cf also Ramsay, History of the Amer-
ican Revolution (Philadelphia, 1789), I, 96.

1 Mass. Spy, Oct. 14, 1773.

70 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (VoL. XXXII

Commissioners may riot in luxury.”* ‘A Merchant” ex-
pressed surprise that the merchants and traders had not met to
take action in the crisis, noting, among other commercial ills,
that ‘‘ those gentlemen that have dealt in that article will alto-
gether be deprived of the benefit arising from such business.” ”
The loyalist town of Hinsdale, N. H., resolved unanimously
that the tumult against the tea was not due to objections against
a revenue tax, “‘ but because the intended Method of Sale in
this Country by the East India Company probably would hurt
the private Interest of many Persons who deal largely in Tea.” 3

At New York and Philadelphia, the chief smuggling ports,
greater emphasis was placed on the threatened ruin awaiting
the illicit tea traffic. The Philadelphia merchant, Thomas
Wharton, pointed out that “it is impossible always to form a
true judgment from what real motives an opposition springs, as
the smugglers and London importers may both declare that
this duty is stamping the Americans with the badge of slav-
ery.’+ A tea commissioner at Boston believed that the agita-
tion against the act was “fomented, if not originated, prin-
cipally by those persons concerned in the Holland trade,” a
trade “‘ much more practised in the Southern Governments than
this way.”5 ‘A Citizen” conceded cautiously in the New
York Fournal of November 11, 1773, that ‘we have not been
hitherto altogether at the mercy of those monopolists [the East
India Company |, because it has been worth the while for others
to supply us with tea at a more reasonable price,” but that here-
after “if tea should be brought us from any foreign market,
the East India Company might occasionally undersell those
concerned in it, so as to ruin or deter them from making many
experiments of the kind.” <A loyalist writer expressed the same
thought from a different point of view when he affirmed to the
people of New York that every measure of the radical cabal

1 Boston Eve. Post, Oct. 18, 1773.
2 Mass. Spy, Oct. 28, 1773.

3.N. H. Gazette, June 17, 1774.

* Drake, of. cit., p. 273.

5 Jbid., pp. 261-262.

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No. 1]

UPRISING AGAINST THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 71

is an undoubted proof that not your liberties but their private interest
is the object. To create an odium against the British company is the
main point at which they have labored. They have too richly exper-
ienced the fruits which may be reaped from a contraband trade. .. .
to relinquish them to others without a struggle.’

One of the tea commissioners at New York declared that
‘the introduction of the East India Company’s tea is violently
opposed here by a set of men who shamefully live by monopo-
lizing tea in the smuggling way.”* Governor Tryon and others
entertained a similar opinion.

To rob the new law of the appeal it held for the pocketbooks
of the tea purchasers, the writers impeached the good faith of
the company in undercutting prices. ‘ Reclusus” predicted
confidently that ‘‘ tho’ the first Teas may be sold at a low Rate
to make a popular Entry, yet when this mode of receiving Tea
is well established, they, as all other Monopolists do, will medi-
tate a greater profit on their Goods, and set them up at what
Price they please.”* ‘‘ Hampden” wrote:

Nor let it be said, to cajole the poor, that this importation of tea will
lower the price of it. Is any temporary abatement of that to be weighed
in the balance with the permanent loss that will attend the sole monop-
oly of it in future, which will enable them abundantly to reimburse
themselves by raising the price as high as their known avarice may
dictate ? °

In the words of ‘“‘ Mucius,”’

Every purchaser must be at their mercy; .... the India Company
would not undertake to pay the duty in England or America—pay
enormous fees to Commissioners, &c. &c. unless they were well assured
that the Americans would in the end reimburse them for every expense
their unreasonable project should bring along with it.®

1N. Y. Gazetteer, Nov. 18, 1773.

? Drake, of. cit., p. 269.

5N. Y. Col. Docs., VIII, 400, 408. A similar opinion was shared by Haldimand,
at New York, Brit. Papers (** Sparks Mss.’’), III, 175; and by the anonymous
authors of letters in 4 Am. Arch., I, 302 n., and of an address in ibid. , 642.

* Boston Eve. Post, Oct. 18, 1773.
5M. Y. Fournal, Oct. 28, 1773.
* Fa. Packet, Nov. 1, 1773.

72 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

The writers sought to show that the present project of the
East India Company was the entering wedge for larger and
more ambitious undertakings calculated to undermine the col-
onial mercantile world. Their opinion was based on the fact
that, in addition to the article of tea, the East India Company
imported into England vast quantities of silks, calicoes and other
fabrics, spices, drugs and chinaware, all commodities of staple
demand; and on their fear that the success of the present ven-
ture would result in an extension of the same principle to the
sale of the other articles. Perhaps no argument had greater
weight than this; nor, indeed, was such a development beyond
the range of possibility. *

If they succeed in their present experiment with tea, argued
“ A Mechanic,”

they will send their own Factors and Creatures, establish Houses
among US, Ship US all other East-India Goods; and, in order to
full freight their Ships, take in other Kind of Goods at under Freight,
or [more probably ship] them on their own Accounts to their own
Factors, and undersell our Merchants, till they monopolize the whole
Trade. Thus our Merchants are ruined, Ship Building ceases. They
will then sell Goods at any exorbitant Price. Our Artificers will be
unemployed, and every Tradesman will groan under dire Oppression.”

“ Hampden” warned the New Yorkers:

If you receive the portion [of tea] designed for this city, you will in
future have an India warehouse here; and the trade of all the com-

1In a letter of Oct. 5, 1773 to Thomas Walpole, Thomas Wharton proposed the
extension of the East India Company’s trade, under the new regulations, to include
pepper, spices and silks; Drake, of. ci¢., pp. 274-275. Dickinson, in an essay in
July 1774, quoted a contemporary writer in England as proposing ‘‘ that the Gov-
ernment, through the means of a few merchants acquainted with the American trade,
. . +» Should establish factors at Boston, New York, and a few other ports, for the
sale of such cargoes of British manufactures as should be consigned to them; and to
consist of such particularly as were most manufactured in the Province, with direc-
tions immediately and continually to undersell all such Colony manufactures; ”’
4 Am. Archives, I, 575 n. The probability of some such scheme was also contem-
plated by ‘‘ An American Watchman ”’ in Pinkney’s Va. Gazette, Jan. 26, 1775.
2 Pa. Gazette, Dec. 8, 1773. Cf. also a letter in Pa. Chron., Nov. 15, 1773, and
«A Countryman” in Pa. Packet, Oct. 18, 1773.

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No. 1] UPRISING AGAINST THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 73

modities of that country will be lost to your merchants and be carried
on by the company, which will be an immense loss to the colony.’

A customs commissioner writing to the home government
from Boston noted that it was pretended that “ when once the
East India Company has established Warehouses for the Sale
of Tea, all other articles commonly imported from the East
Indies and Saleable in America, will be sent there by the
Company.” ?

That the fear of monopoly was the mainspring of American
opposition is further evidenced by the trend of discussion in
the early weeks before it was known definitely that the new law
provided for the retention of the three-pence import duty. The
report gained currency that the tea shipped by the East India
Company was to be introduced free of the American import
duty. This understanding was based upon a misreading of that
portion of the statute which empowered the company “ to ex-
port such tea to any of the British colonies or plantations in
America, or to foreign parts, discharged from the payment of
any customs or duties whatsoever, anything in the said recited
act, or any other act, to the contrary notwithstanding.”3 Had
this been a correct interpretation of the law, there is every
reason to believe that the course of American opposition would
have developed unchanged and the tea would then have been
dumped into the Atlantic as an undisguised and unmixed pro-
test against a grasping trading-monopoly.

Governor Tryon, of New York, in a letter to the home gov-
ernment made reference to the animated discussion over the
question; and added:

If the tea comes free of every duty, I understand it is then to be con-
sidered as a Monopoly of the East India Company in America; a
monopoly of dangerous tendency, it is said, to American liberties. . . .
So that let the Tea appear free or not free of Duty those who carry on

1N. Y. Fournal, Oct. 28, 1773.

* Stevens, Facsimiles, XXIV, no. 2029, p. 4. Cf. also Hancock’s view, expressed
in the annual oration of Mar. 5, 1774; 1 M. H. S. Procs., XIII, 187.

* Unsigned article in WV. Y. Gazetteer, Oct. 28, 1773. Cf. ‘* Poplicola,” sid,
Nov. 18, 1773. ‘*A construction strongly implied by the liberty granted to export
the same Commodity to foreign Countries free of Duties,” wrote Tryon to Dartmouth,
Nov, 3, 1773; N. Y. Col. Docs. VIII, 400-401.

74 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoLt, XXXII

the illicit Trade will raise objections, if possible, to its being brought
on shore and sold.’

Tryon’s analysis of the situation is confirmed by the tone of
newspaper discussion during the weeks of uncertainty.

Even if the tea bears no duty, wrote a New Yorker to his
friend in Philadelphia, “would not the opening of an East-India
House in America encourage all the great Companies in Great
Britain to do the same? If so, have we a single chance of
being any Thing but Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Waters
to them? The East Indians are a proof of this.”? In like
spirit, ‘A Mechanic” declared scornfully that it made no dif-
ference whether the tea was dutied or not. ‘Is it not a gross
and daring insult, to pilfer the trade from the Americans, and
lodge it in the hands of the East India Company?” he queried ;
“it will first most sensibly affect the Merchants; but it will
also very materially affect . . . every Member of the Com-
munity.” 3

In the vigorous words of “A Citizen,” ‘“ Whether the duty
on tea is taken off or not, the East India Company’s scheme
has too dangerous an aspect for us to permit an experiment to
be made of it.” In the same letter he says:

The scheme appears too big with mischievous consequences and dangers
to America, [even if we consider it only] as it may create a monopoly ;
or, as it may introduce a monster, too powerful for us to control, or con-
tend with, and too rapacious and destructive, to be trusted, or even seen
without horror, that may be able to devour every branch of our com-
merce, drain us of all our property and substance, and wantonly leave
us to perish by thousands. . . .*

All ambiguity as to the true meaning of the statute was re-
moved by the lucid pen of John Dickinson and others and
finally by a reported opinion of His Majesty’s attorney and
solicitor general. It was shown, by careful analysis of the act,

IN. Y. Col. Docs., VIII, 400.

2 Pa, Chron., Nov. 15, 1773-

3 Pa. Gazette, Dec. 8, 1773.
*NM. Y. Fournal, Nov. 4, 1773.

No. 1] UPRISING AGAINST THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 75

that the East India Company were merely exempted from the
payment of all duties and customs chargeable in England and
that the American import duty remained as before.t Even
after this time, the New Yorkers were afraid that Parliament
might heed the American protest against taxation and proceed
to repeal the three-pence duty without rescinding the monopoly
rights granted to the East India Company. In a remarkable
letter written more than two months after the Boston Tea Party,
the New York Committee of Correspondence asserted frankly:

Should the Revenue Act be repealed this Session of Parliament, as the
East India Company by the Act passed the last Session have liberty to
export their own Tea, which is an advantage they never had before
and which their distress will certainly induce them to embrace, we
consider such an event as dangerous to our Commerce, as the execu-
tion of the Revenue Act would be to our Liberties. For as no Mer-
chant who is acquainted with the certain opperation of a Monopoly on
that or this side the Water will send out or order Tea to America when
those who have it at the first hand send to the same market, the Com-
pany will have the whole supply in their Hands. Hence it will neces-
sarily follow that we shall ultimately be at their Mercy to extort from
us what price they please for their Tea. And when they find their
success in this Article, they will obtain liberty to export their Spices,
Silk etc. . . . And therefore we have had it long in contemplation to
endeavor to get an Agreement signed not to purchase any English tea
till so much of the Act passed the last session of Parliament enabling
the Company to ship their Tea to America be repealed. Nothing
short of this will prevent its being sent out on their account.’

1«ey, Z.”’ (Dickinson) in Pa. Fournal, Nov. 3, 1773; also in Dickinson’s Writ-
ings (Ford, P. L., ed.), I, 457-458; ‘*Cato” and ‘‘A Tradesman’’ in XM. Y.
Gazetteer, Nov. 4, 18, 1773; ‘‘A Citizen’? in V. Y. Pournal, Nov. 4, 1773; letter
in Pa. Fournal, Nov. 10, 1773.

2 Letter to Boston Committee of Correspondence, Feb. 28, 1773; Bos. Com. Cor-
Mss., IX, 742-746. The letter added that the committee would ‘‘ feel the pulse”
of the Philadelphia Committee and the other committees to the southward and re-
quested the Boston Committee to urge the matter on the committees at Rhode Island,
Philadelphia and Charleston, S.C. No replies to the New York proposal have been
found.

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POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL.. XXXII

76
III

In view of the subordinate place which the argument of vio-
lated rights held in the minds of the propagandists, protests
against “taxation without representation” were made chiefly
for rhetorical effect.. This may be shown by a few examples.
In a letter written by a committee of the Massachusetts As-
sembly after the Boston Tea Party, the new act was characterized
as ‘‘ introductive of monopolies which, besides the train of evils
that attend them in a commercial view, are forever dangerous
to public liberty,” also as “ pregnant with new grievances, pav-
ing the way to further impositions, and in its consequences
threatening the final destruction of liberties.”* ‘“ A Consistent

. Patriot” stigmatized the act as ‘‘a plan not only destructive to

trade, in which we are all so deeply interested but .. . de-
signed to promote and encrease a revenue extorted from us
against our consent.’3 The new statute, declares ‘ Causidi-
cus,” was a case of

taxation without consent and monopoly of trade establishing itself to-
gether . . .. Let the trade be monopolized in particular hands or
companies, and the privileges of these companies lye totally at the
mercy of a British ministry and how soon will that ministry command
all the power and property of the empire? *

Even the members of the First Continental Congress treated
the matter from an unchanged viewpoint when they declared,
on October 21, 1774, in their Memorial to the Inhabitants of
the British Colonies that “ Administration . . . entered into a
monopolizing combination with the East India Company, to

1 The smugglers and dissatisfied merchants ‘* made a notable stalking horse of the
word liberty,’’ declared ‘‘ A Tradesman of Philadelphia,” ‘‘ and many well meaning
persons were duped by the specious colouring of their sinister zeal.’ Pa. Yournal,
Aug. 17, 1774, suppl.

2Letter of Dec. 21, 1773, to Arthur Lee, signed by Thomas Cushing, Samuel
Adams, John Hancock and William Phillips; 4 M. H. S. Colls., IV, 377.

3 Mass. Spy, Oct. 14, 1773.

‘ /bid., Nov. 4, 1773. Cf. also “Joshua, the son of Nun,” idid., Oct. 14,
1773, and ‘* Scaevola’’ in Pa. Chron., Oct. 11, 1773.

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No. 1] UPRISING AGAINST THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 77

send to this Continent vast quantities of Tea, an article on which
a Duty was laid... . ”?

Of the other arguments used to stir up opposition, the most
interesting was the attempt to discredit the present undertaking
of the East India Company by reason of the company’s notori-
ously bad record in India. John Dickinson was the most forceful
exponent of this view in a broadside which had wide popularity
in both Philadelphia and New York. Writing under the signa-
ture of “ Rusticus,” he declared:

Their conduct in Asia, for some Years past, has given ample Proof, how
little they regard the Laws of Nations, the Rights, Liberties, or Lives
of Men. They have levied War, excited Rebellions, dethroned Princes,
and sacrificed Millions for the Sake of Gain. ‘The revenues of mighty
Kingdoms have centered in their Coffers. And these not being suf-
ficient to glut their Avarice, they have, by the most unparalleled Bar-
barities, Extortions and Monopolies, stripped the miserable Inhabitants
of their Property, and reduced whole Provinces to Indigence and Ruin.
Fifteen hundred Thousand, it is said, perished by Famine in one Year,
not because the Earth denied its Fruits, but this Company and its
Servants engrossed all the Necessaries of Life, and set them at so high
a Rate, that the Poor could not purchase them. Thus having drained
the Sources of that immense Wealth . . . , they now, it seems, cast
their Eyes on America, as a new Theatre, whereon to exercise their
Talents of Rapine, Oppression and Cruelty. The Monopoly of Tea,
is, I dare say, but a small Part of the Plan they have formed to strip
us of our Property. But thank God, we are not Sea Poys, nor Ma-
rattas, but British Subjects, who are born to Liberty, who know its
Worth, and who prize it high.’

1 Journals of the Continental Congress (L. C. edn.), I, 98.

? Dickinson’s Writings, I, 459-463. According to ‘*A Mechanic,” ‘*The East-
India Cempany, if once they get Footing,. . - will leave no Stone unturned to
become your Masters.. . They themselves are well versed in Tyranny, Plunder,
Oppression and Bloodshed ’’ and so on; Pa. Gazette, Dec. 8, 1773. A town meet-
ing at Windham, Conn., on June 23, 1774, denounced the East India Company,
declaring: ‘* Let the Spanish barbarities in Mexico and the name of a Cortez be
sunk in everlasting oblivion, while such more recent, superior cruelties bear away the
palm, in the history of their rapine and cruelty;’’ A/ass. Spy, July 7, 1774. Of.
also ‘* A. Z.”” in Pa. Fournal, Oct. 20, 1773, and ‘‘ Hampden” in WV. Y. Fournal,
Oct. 28, 1773.

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POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

78

The hygienic objection to tea drinking also received attention.
It is not altogether without significance that one of the leading
men to urge this objection was Dr. Thomas Young, a physician
who spent more time in the Boston Committee of Correspond-
ence meditating a rigorous physic for the body politic than in
prescribing for private patients... Dr. Young cited Dr. Tissot,
professor of physic at Berne, and other eminent authorities, to
prove that the introduction of tea into Europe had caused the
whole face of disease to change, the prevailing disorders now
being “spasms, vapors, hypochondrias, apoplexies of the ser-
ous kind, palsies, dropsies, rheumatisms, consumptions, low
nervous, miliary and petechial fevers.”? ‘ Philo-Alethias”
added ‘‘the great Boerhaave” and Dr. Cullen, professor of
medicine at Edinburgh, to the authorities already noted, and
suggested seventeen possible substitutes, beneficial in their
effects, that could be brewed from plants of American growth.3
“An old Mechanic” recalled with a sigh

the time when Tea was not used, nor scarcely known amongst us, and
yet people seemed at that time of day to be happier, and to enjoy
more health in general than they do now. [Since those days, a sad
change has occurred] we must be every day bringing in some new-
fangled thing or other from abroad, till we are really become a luxuri-
ous people. No matter how ugly and deformed a garment is; nor
how insipid or tasteless, or prejudicial to our healths an eatable or
drinkable is, we must have it, if it is the fashion.‘

“ A Woman’s”’ intuition suggested the fitting retort to these
alarmist writings when she remarked scornfully that no one had
heard of these “scarecrow stories” until tea had become a
political issue.’ The little town of Hinsdale, N. H., undertook
to expose the hypocrisy of the health advocates in a different

1Edes, H. H., ** Dr. Thomas Young,” Col. Soc. Mass. Pubs., XI, 2-54.
? Bos, Eve. Post, Oct. 25,1773. Cf. also his article in the Mass. Spy, Dec. 30,
1773-
* Pa. Fournal, Dec. 22, 1773.
4 Jbid., Oct. 20, 1773.
5 Mass. Spy, Dec. 23, 1773.

No. 1] UPRISING AGAINST THE EAST INDIA COMPANY 79

way. Assembled in town meeting, the inhabitants resolved
unanimously that “ the Consequences attending the use of New-
England Rum are much more pernicious to Society than the
Consequences attending the use of Tea,” destroying “ the
Lives and Liberties of Thousands where Tea hath or ever will
One,” and that Hinsdale would banish the use of tea when
those towns and persons who declaimed so loudly against tea
should abstain from the use of rum.’

These were the views and arguments that incited the people
to action when the shipments of the East India Company ar-
rived. The basis for the later claim that the colonists were
animated by devotion to the principle of local taxation was to
be found in the declarations issued by mass meetings convened
to coerce the tea commissioners into resigning. The resolutions
adopted by the Philadelphia meeting of October 16, formed a
model for many other similar gatherings: the tea duty was
denounced as taxation without representation and the shipment
of tea by the East India Company was denominated an open
attempt to enforce the ministerial plan.2 These meetings,
however, were the flowering, not the roots, of the tree that had
been carefully planted and nourished by the beneficiaries of
the existing business order.

ARTHUR MEIER SCHLESINGER.
Oxu10 STATE UNIVERSITY.

1N. H. Gazette, June 17, 1774.
* Pa. Packet, Oct. 18, 1773.

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THE UNEARNED INCREMENT IN GARY

N view of the wide interest in the single tax and the special
taxation of land, there has been a curious lack of study
of actual land-value movements. Special land taxes, par-

ticularly increment taxes, are rapidly becoming popular. Yet
little effort has been made to study quantitatively and intensively
the size and nature of the increments so much discussed. The
pages which follow present the results of an attempt to deter-
mine as exactly as possible the increase in land values in the
industrial city of Gary, Indiana, and to estimate what portion of
that increase may properly be termed an “ unearned increment.” *

A number of characteristics commend Gary as a promising
field for such a study. Its age, ten years, is great enough for
the effects upon land values to become apparent and yet short
enough for the statistics to be of manageable proportions. The
absence of development prior to 1906 makes it possible to begin
the story with practically a clean sheet and to attribute with
safety the conditions now present to the activities of this partic-
ular enterprise. The absence of other industrial plants sim-
plifies the problem, and the presence of company control over
so large a share of the development makes the example more
convincing and forceful.

The first part of the problem is to determine the value in
1906 of the land now included within the limits of the city of
Gary. In spite of two serious obstacles, it is possible to de-
termine this figure with fair accuracy. The first difficulty is

1 The investigation of the Gary situation was undertaken at the request and with
the support of Mr. Richard S. Childs. For letters of introduction and for assistance
in gathering material the writer desires to thank Mayor John Purroy Mitchel, of New
York; President Butler and Dean Keppel, of Columbia University; Judge E. H.
Gary, chairman of the board of directors, and Mr. Raynal C. Bolling, general
solicitor of the United States Steel Corporation; Mr. E. J. Buffington, president of
the Illinois Steel Company; Captain Norton, manager, and Mr. L. W. McNamee,
auditor of the Gary Land Company; Mr. Lawson Purdy, chairman of the Board of
Taxes and Assessments of New York, and various officials and citizens of Gary too

numerous to mention,
80

THE UNEARNED INCREMENT IN GARY S81

the reluctance of the steel officials to give exact information.
The use of data secured from outside sources, however, checks
the accuracy of the approximate figures furnished by them.
The other obstacle is that much of the land did not change
hands in 1906. Its value is learned through the testimony of
persons intimately acquainted with real-estate conditions as they
existed at that time.

The present area of Gary is 18,749 acres.‘ The steel com-
pany began operations by acquiring title to about one-half of
this area, some nine thousand acres.? This tract extended east
and west along the lake front for approximately seven miles,
and south from the shore a distance varying from two to two
and one-half miles. A sluggish stream divides the tract length-
wise, and the northern part, including all of the water front, is
distinctively the industrial area. The southern portion is de-
voted especially to the city proper. Still further south lies that
part of the town, now highly developed in parts, which was
never under company ownership.

The land was unsuited to agriculture and was practically un-
inhabited in 1906.3 But in spite of this, the steel company was
forced to pay a very large sum for it. Local historians assert
that the whole countryside was purchased about sixty years
ago for one dollar per acre, and that thirty-five years were re-
quired to increase values to fifty and one hundred dollars per
acre. By 1906, however, the tract had fallen into the hands of
persons who realized fully its potential value as a site for a great
industrial plant ‘—situated, as it is, where by a short belt line it

‘ According to information furnished by the city engineer, based however on no
exact survey, there are 19,840 acres within the city limits, of which about 1091 are
covered by water. .

? Judge Gary declined to give exact figures in several instances, but in all cases
approximate statements were obtainable from company sources.

*In the south-western corner of the present city there was a little German settle-
ment known as Tolleston, with less than two hundred inhabitants. A large part of
the land was leased to a gun club.

*A considerable portion of the tract was controlled by the stock-yards interests of
Chicago, which had acquired land in this region with a view to removing from Chi-
cago at the time of a dispute with the Chicago Junction Railway about twenty-five
years ago.

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82 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (VoL. XXXII

connects with every trunk line entering Chicago, and by an
artificial harbor with the carriers on the lakes.

The prices paid by the steel corporation, according to state-
ments of company officials, varied from $500 to $2000 an acre,
averaging about $800. Information from individuals concerned
in the purchase but not now connected with the company makes
$350 and $1500 an acre the extreme prices and $814 the aver-
age.’ The difference between the averages is slight and the
company figures may safely be accepted as substantially accu-
rate. Pressed to state exactly the total original cost of the
company tract, one of the officials replied that it closely ap-
proximated $7,200,000.

This price was paid, moreover, in spite of every precaution
to preserve secrecy. The story of the acquisition of the various
parcels is a complicated and interesting bit of business history.
Negotiations were carried on with the owners through secret
agents who succeeded in making several of the purchases only
after long maneuvering. At one time the suggestion of a con-
demnation suit? brought results. Transactions were settled in
cash rather than by check even though in one case this involved
carrying $1,300,000 in currency through the streets of New
York in a handbag. The prevalent impression that the land
was acquired for a song is mistaken. A considerable portion
of the tract was in fact in the hands of persons waiting for just
such a customer as the steel corporation, and possessing the
means to hold their land until it appeared.

Every one consulted agreed that the 9749 acres now within
the city limits of Gary, but lying outside the tract originally

1This information, based upon the recollection of individuals concerned in the
sales, is cumulated in the following table:

AVERAGE PRICE
NUMBER OF ACRES PER ACRE TOTAL COST

Transaction number one 3714 $350 $1,300,000
- ‘6 two 1500 350 525,000
" ‘* three 700 600 420,000
” <« for 3000 1500 4,500,000
66 “¢ five 750 1500 1,125,000

9664 $814 $7,870,000
? Part of the land was needed for railway purposes.

No. 1] THE UNEARNED INCREMENT IN GARY 83

purchased by the company, was worth decidedly less than the
company land. As to how much less, opinions varied widely.
The county assessor cites acreage tracts located on what is now
the main street of Gary which were sold for taxes amounting
to only 87 cents per acre. The estimate of Mr. A. F. Knotts,
who bought generously in this tract at the time, is of particular
value. He states that he could have purchased the entire tract
for prices ranging from $50 to $75 per acre, and that an allow-
ance of $75 per acre would be liberal. On this basis the cost
in 1906 of the land now within the city limits but not acquired
by the steel company would have been $731,175. Adding this
to the price of the company tract, $7,931,175 is the result. As
nearly as can be ascertained, therefore, the entire area of the
city of Gary could have been purchased in 1906 for approxi-
mately eight million dollars.

In order to estimate the present value of the land in Gary,
it is necessary to take the assessment of land for taxation
and qualify the figures according to the testimony of those
familiar with local real-estate values. Happily, land is assessed
separately from improvements, but unfortunately assessments
are not made on a full-value basis. Indeed, the value of land
in Gary, according to the assessment of 1915, is only $8,004,
145, but little more than was paid for approximately one-half
the area of the city in 1906! No one, of course, pretends
that this represents the true selling value of the land. The
local assessor states that the assessment is only about 20 %
of full value. Three of Gary’s leading real-estate men are
of the opinion that the assessment in 1915 averaged one-fifth
the true selling value of the land. A member of the board of
review which passed upon the 1915 assessment believes the
assessed value to be between 20 % and 25 % of the true value.
The estimates of six other well-informed persons vary between
16 % and 25 %. Accepting 20 % as the consensus of all these
judgments, the total land value of Gary today amounts to
$40,020,725.

This figure includes value of all land used by the steel cor-
poration itself, excepting Kirk Yard, the switching yard for the

84 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (VoL. XXXII

steel belt line, which is centrally assessed. The purpose of
this study, however, is primarily to determine the increase in
value of the land outside the plant gates, since the company is
not in a position to realize on the increase in value of plant
land. The value of plant sites should therefore be eliminated
both from the original cost and from the present assessment
total. According to the assessment rolls, the plant sites occupy
1595.9 acres." Adding the area of Kirk Yard, estimated at 300
acres, at $800 per acre, the original cost of the land was $1,516,
720. This leaves $6,414,455 as the value in 1906 of the non-
plant land. (It should be noted that the use of the average
acreage price is over-conservative because the plant land, lying
on the lake shore, was the most expensive portion of the orig-
inal company tract). Subtracting the 1915 assessed value of
this plant land ($1,314,965) from the total assessment ($8,004,
145) the remainder ($6,689,180) is the assessed value of the
non-plant land. Raising this to full value, $33,445,900 is the
result.

It appears that the land beyond the mill gates in Gary was
worth in 1906 not more than six and one-half millions ($6,414,
455) and that today its selling price is about thirty-three and
one-half millions ($33,445,900), an increase of twenty-seven

millions ($27,031,445).

Parenthetically it may be well to show how public revenue
has been collected in Gary, in order to appreciate the burden
under which the city has labored while the increment was devel-
oping. Table I gives a statement of the cash receipts of the
city over a series of years. Special assessments and general
taxes, furnishing approximately equal sums, are seen to have
produced almost all the revenue.

1 The acreage and assessed value of the land of the steel properties stand on the
assessment rolls as follows:

ACRES ASSESSED VALUE
Indiana Steel Company 1,172.8 $1,025,135
American Sheet and Tin Plate Company 204.1 162,595
American Bridge Company 143-1 97,655
Illinois Steel Company (for Universal
Portland Cement Company) 75-9 29,580

Total 1,595.9 $1,314,965

No. 1] THE UNEARNED INCREMENT IN GARY 85
TABLE I
CASH RECEIPTS, 1909-1915 !
LICENSES, FEES,
SPECIAL PERMITS AND TOTAL
TAXATION ASSESSMENTS PENALTIES MISCELLANEOUS (CURRENT)
1909 §6=.- $35,704.74. $208,545.93" .. +. - $14,688.36 oe
1910 89,493-76 153,774-39 $53,230.00 36,780.23 $333,278.38
IQII 258,245-45 «+e $6,595.08" 46,0768 £+ij« css
1912 236,117.98 382,502.80 112,969.20 4,629.71 736,219.69
1913 404,944.45 404,914.69 103,631.77 6,955.61 920,446.52
1914 367,371.48 389,951.31 102,159.18 6,352.89 865,834.86
1915 417,624.57 328,751.33 93,417.49 5,708. 10 845,501.49
TABLE II
RATES OF TAXATION *
(Cents per $100 of assessed value)
TOWNSHIP® INCLUDING
STATE COUNTY SCHOOL TAXES CITY TOTAL
1907 31.35 32.65 148. 212.
1908 33-35 41.65 173. 248.
1909 33-35 37-65 243- 314.
1910 33-35 ? ? 354.
IgII 31.85 ? ? 161. 371.
1912 31.85 33-15 153. 126. 344.
1913 31.85 52.15 146. 164. 394.
1914 40.10 47.90 190. 144. 422.
1915 40.10 68.90 187. 152. 448.
1916 40.10 72.90 177. 133. 423.

' It is impossible to give a full and balanced financial history of Gary, for the rec-
ords have been kept in the most careless fashion. It was only by searching through
a mass of unclassified documents in the vault of the city clerk that the incomplete
data presented in the table were obtained.

The figures given consist merely of current cash receipts, the receipts from loans
and inter-fund transfers having been eliminated. The fiscal year coincides with the
calendar year.

* This figure is doubtful.

5 Liquor licenses only.

It is designated ‘‘ Received—Street Improvements.’*

*The year given is the year when the taxes are collected, the period of payment
beginning January 1 of each year. The assessment is made during the preceding
year; ¢. g., the tax rate for 1916 is levied on the assessment for 1915.

5 Part of the city of Gary once lay within the township of Hobart. From 1908 to
1912 the total rate upon property in that section differed from that lying in Calumet
township, as follows: 1908, 24 points higher; 1909, 21 points higher; 1910, 19
points higher; 1911, one point lower; 1912, 19 points higher.

86

POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

(Vor. XXXII

The rates of taxation which have obtained are set forth in

Table II and the assessed value of property in Table III. The
tax rates should be considered in the light of the great under-
valuation. Assessed value is said always to have been approxi-
mately twenty per cent of the full value.

TABLE III

ASSESSED VALUES !

LAND IMPROVEMENTS OTHER PROPERTY TOTAL
1907 $2,087,885 $30,200 $1,079,775 $3,197,8607
1908 2,119,035 3875175 2,005,500 4,511,710?
1909 2,042,380 537,125 1,621,494 4,200,999°
1910 2,042,380? 4:437,4107 » oe 11,611,300*
IQII 8,663,605 3,431,860 3,209,940 15,305,405
1912 7,944,790° 4,296,675° entih a ea
1913 8,663,600 4,601,995 4,161,243 17,426,838°
1914 7,778,020 4,857,420 eee 22,259,295?
1915 8,004,145 7,980,275 28,211,440°

The amount of the outstanding municipal debt on January 1,
1916, was $225,500. This figure, however, does not take into
account the special-assessment indebtedness.

Having arrived at an estimate of the total increase in the
land values of Gary and having shown the tax burden which
has been present, the next step is to attempt to evaluate the
contributions of those who have aided in the development of
the increment. There have been expenditures by the municipal
government, by the Gary Land Company, and by private indi-
viduals, which have been reflected directly in the increase in
land values and which were made in the expectation that they
would be recouped from that increase. If such of these ex-
penditures as were necessary to the development of the land

1 The year given is the year in which the assessments were made and not the year
in which the taxes, levied on these assessments, were collected. Thus the 1915 figures
were the base upon which the 1916 levy was made.

? From copy of official abstract in office of county assessor at Crown Point.

3 From official abstract in office of state auditor at Indianapolis.

* From annual reports of departments, Gary, 1910.
5 From the records of the state auditor. The last figure in the 7o/a/ column may
be a 6 instead of an 8.

No. 1] THE UNEARNED INCREMENT IN GARY 87

values should be subtracted from the twenty-seven-million-
dollar increment, the result would fairly represent the “ net”
increment of Gary. What are the subtractions, then, which
should be allowed?

In most discussions of special land tax it is customary for
the opponents of the measures to assert that increments would
be largely canceled if such contributions were taken into ac-
count; that increments are in a very real sense “ earned” by
the owners, who assume certain risks, ‘“‘ endure the lean years,”
exercise foresight, ‘‘develop” the real estate, pay taxes on
non-revenue-producing property etc." However, the strongest
arguments supporting the position that increments are “ earned ”
can be advanced with more confidence in the case of agricultural
land than in the case of city land. Some arguments which have
a sound basis in the case of a city of the ordinary type appear
groundless when an industrial city like Gary is the case in point.
Gary has been aptly termed “‘a city by decree.” The decision
of a board of directors established it and determined its loca-
tion and its approximate size. These are the elements which
are the very foundation of land speculation—the place where
the center of population is to be and the size of that population
center. In the case of new industrial cities, these factors are
known beforehand with a considerable degree of definiteness.
There is not the ordinary justification, therefore, for the pres-
ence of a group of speculators as risk-takers. The economic
basis for their activity is almost non-existent.

In considering the subtractions, the allowance to be made
for the expenses of laying out the city and administering the
land system may first be discussed. Today the development
of most cities is planned and administered by private individuals
who take their reward in increased land values. No one can
doubt that this is a bunglesome and expensive method. In
Gary these functions have been performed for a large part of
the city at a very slight expense by the Gary Land Company,
the real-estate subsidiary of the Illinois Steel Company. One

' For recent treatment of this problem </. T. S. Adams, ‘‘Tax Exemption through
Tax Capitalization,’? American Economic Review, vol. vi, pp. 281-282, and Carl
C. Plehn, Transactions of the Commonwealth Club of California, vol. xi, p. 360.

88 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [Vor. XXXII

of the surprises which awaits any investigator of conditions in
Gary is the success of the land company. It supplies building
sites in its tract fully as satisfactorily as do real-estate men in
other portions of the city. In making an estimate of the “ net”’
increment, some allowance should be made for such necessary
expenses, but the amount of this allowance would be so slight
as to be almost negligible—a few hundred thousand dollars at
most.

There are still at least two other contributions to the incre-
ment which must be deducted from the gross amount. Both
are of a financial nature. In the first place, the speculator’
assumes title to land which he believes will advance in value and
pays current taxes while receiving no income, in the hope of re-
coupment at the time of sale. He also assumes responsibility
for the installation of improvemens, usually paid for on the
special-assessment principle.

The first point, that of making deductions from the increment
for the advance payment of taxes, raises several interesting the-
oretical problems which appear never to have been adequately
considered. What is the influence of these payments upon the
magnitude of the increment? Do they increase it or decrease
it? Do they affect it at all? This is not the place to undertake
a full discussion of these problems. Suffice it to say that there
are probably good grounds for the view that these payments
constitute in effect fees paid for the privilege of speculating on
the changes in the price of land. The city receives the fees,
and the owner normally sells the land at an advance. The net
result is a recoupment of the increment to the amount of the
proceeds of the fees. It follows that such payments should be
deducted.

Here again, however, the amounts involved are inconsiderable.
The total of all tax levies on land in Gary since the founding
of the city amounts to less than two million dollars.2_ A liberal

1 The term ‘‘speculator ’’ is used to cover the entire group of beneficiaries of the
increment under the conditions which obtain at present,

2 This does not include the taxes on the land before the city was established, for the
entire value in 1906 is subtracted from the present value in the calculations. The

No. 1] THE UNEARNED INCREMENT IN GARY 89

estimate would place the taxes paid in advance of use for the
privilege of speculating at not more than half that sum, or one
million dollars.

In addition to services in administering the land system and
in paying taxes on non-revenue-producing property, the benefi-
ciary of the increment ordinarily contributes to the increase by
providing local improvements. If the owner equips his lot
with pavements, sewers and sidewalks, and the value is increased q
thereby, no one will object to deducting the cost from the in-
crease in calculating the unearned increment. The question
whether assessments paid for worn-out improvements should be
deducted does not enter as a factor of moment in this case,
because of the youth of the city. Sometimes, of course, im-
provements are so injudiciously made as not to increase the value
of the land by an amount equal to the cost. This, unfortu-
nately, has happened in several cases in Gary, but the amount
involved is so small that it may safely be ignored.

Local improvements in Gary have been provided through
the co-operation of the public authorities and the Gary Land
Company. At the beginning of 1915, Gary had 225 miles of
streets, improved and unimproved, including 76.5 miles of paved
city streets and 45.5 miles of county roads, a total of 122 miles
of improved roads and streets. Approximately four miles of
streets were improved during 1915, raising this figure to 126
miles. Sewers had been installed to the extent of 57.8 miles.
There were 122.3 miles of cement sidewalks. The area of parks

figure was obtained by applying the total tax rates to the assessed values of land.
The levies on land stand as follows:

1908 $51,779.55
1909 66,537.70
1910 72,300.25
IQII 759772.30
1912 298,028.01
1913 312,924.73
1914 365,603.92
1915 348,455.30
1916 338,575-33

$1,929,977.09

90 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

and playgrounds was 60 acres.*' Substantially all of this equip-
ment, except the county roads and part of the parks, had been
financed without recourse to the proceeds of the millage rate
on property.

The Gary Land Company constructs its-own local improve-
ments and recoups itself through land sales and rentals. The
city constructs the street improvements and sewers in the re-
maining portion of Gary under the special-assessment plan.
Prior to January I, 1916, the expenditures of the Gary Land
Company for local improvements were approximately $1,730,
000, distributed as follows:

General clearing and grading $180,000
Street paving, sidewalks, gutters and curbs 1,050,000
Sewers 410,000
Trees and top dressing 90,000

Total $1,730,000

The total cost of street improvements constructed by the city
has been $2,157,963.75, and the cost of the sewers has been
$1,340,606.80; the total being $3,498,570.55. All but $215,
907.85 of this sum has been met by special assessments, that
amount being contributed from general revenues to meet the
cost of improving intersections. A small amount of sidewalk
has been privately constructed at an estimated cost of $13,050.
Subtracting the intersection cost and adding the cost of pri-
vately constructed sidewalks, the city’s figure becomes $3,
295,712.70. Adding the Gary Land Company’s expenditure,
$5,025,712.70 is the result.

Still another modification must be made, however. While
all the expenditures of the Gary Land Company for street im-
provements may reasonably be expected to appear in increased
land values, this is not true of the city expenditures for such
purposes; for a considerable portion of the special assessments
remains uncollected and undoubtedly operates to depress land
values by approximately that amount. Special-assessment
bonds have been issued to the sum of $1,979,166.56. Strangely

1 Annual Reports of the Heads of the Departments of the City of Gary, 1914, p. 51.
The exact figures for 1916 had not been compiled by the city engineer.

a

.

No. 1] THE UNEARNED INCREMENT IN GARY gI

enough, the city has no exact record of the number of these
bonds which have been redeemed. An estimate furnished by
the controller's office places the amount outstanding at one
million dollars. Deducting this from the total arrived at in the
preceding paragraph, the figure representing the portion of
increment “earned” through expenditures for local improve-
ments, and therefore to be deducted from the total, is fixed at
approximately four million dollars ($4,025,712.70).

The results of the preceding analysis may now be consoli-
dated. The market value in 1906 of the land in Gary, excluding
that occupied by the plants of the steel corporation, is estimated
at $6,414,455, and the present value at $33,445,900. The
increase in the ten-year period, therefore, amounts to $27,031,
445. The examination of the value of the services rendered
by those who have come into possession of this increment
indicates that an allowance of perhaps $200,000 should be
made for necessary administrative expenses, that not more than
$1,000,000 should be credited because of taxes advanced on
unused lands, and that $4,025,712.70 should be allowed as hav-
ing been paid by land owners for local improvements. The
total money value of the services of these beneficiaries of the
increment amounts then to $5,225,712.70. The amount of the
increment which might conceivably have been conserved is thus
found to be $21,805,732.30.

While many of the items underlying this result are more or less
arbitrary estimates, it is believed that they err on the whole
in the direction of reducing the unearned increment. In addi-
tion some elements in the situation have been entirely ignored.
No account has been taken of interest upon the sums invested.
What allowance should be made for this, it is difficult to deter-
mine, for it is not as though the outlay were bringing in abso-
lutely no return. What account should be taken of that portion
of the city which began to yield ground rents almost immed-
iately? It would be a conservative estimate indeed which would
not concede the ground rents in Gary today to equal a fair
return upon the original outlay. Much the same thing can be
said regarding a deduction for interest on the cost of local im-

92 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [Vot. XXXII

provements. For the most part, the value of improvements is
probably being reflected in the ground rents. The whole item
of interest can accordingly be ignored as immaterial.

Another neglected factor is the effect on the increment of the
change in the general level of prices. Some of the increase in
land value is due merely to the depreciation in the value of
money. The Bureau of Labor’s index number of wholesale
prices is 88 for 1906 and 100 for 1915." On this basis, the
$6,414,455 representing the 1906 value of the non-plant land
would be equivalent to $7,289,153 in 1915, a difference of
$874,698. Subtracting this from the last estimate of the incre-
ment ($21,805,732.30), a remainder of approximately twenty-
one million dollars ($20,93 1,034.30) stands as the final estimate
of the “‘ unearned” increment which has accrued in Gary in the
first ten years of its history.

The main purpose of this paper is attained when the approxi-
mate amount of the unearned increment is determined as closely
as possible. However, the figures disclose a situation full of
interesting possibilities. If Gary is typical of the new industrial
cities? now being so rapidly developed, does there not exist
here an opportunity to conduct single-tax experiments under
conditions peculiarly fair and favorable? Cannot some method
be evolved which, in cities like Gary, will without the confisca-
tion of property rights secure for public purposes a substantial
share of the land rent? As Professor Alvin S. Johnson has
pointed out,3 there is a notable scarcity of economists among
the single-taxers, his explanation being the reluctance of the
fraternity to jeopardize a predominantly middle-class invest-
ment. A host of others beside economists refrain from the
single-tax movement for the same reason. To the large num-
ber who appreciate the desirability of devoting a large share of
land rent to public purposes but who shrink from disturbing

1 Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Whole Number 200, Wholesale
Prices Series, no. 5, p. 13.

* A study recently made by Mr. H. S. Swan of the land values and public expen-
ditures of Lackawanna, N. Y., yields results very similar to those found in Gary.

*The Case Against the Single Tax, Adv/antic Monthly, vol. cxiii, pp. 27 et seg.
(January 1914).

No. 1] THE UNEARNED INCREMENT IN GARY 93

vested interests, a plan for conserving increments without con-
fiscation should appeal strongly.

The opportunity should be particularly attractive to business
leaders in a position to dictate the policies of new industrial
cities. Many of the industries of the United States have
reached a stage where they can afford to ignore the minor con-
veniences of existing cities and can build new cities of their
own, developing these conveniences on the spot most advanta-
geous as to markets and materials. The opportunity afforded
for preliminary planning of these industrial cities is at present
largely wasted. Remarkable possibilities are open when it is
known beforehand that a city of a given size is certain to develop
on a particular site.

To discuss fully the relative merits of various plans for con-
serving the increment would expand this paper unduly. At
least four possible ways of accomplishing the end appear practi-
cable, and they are briefly stated, in order to furnish a basis for
possible discussion.

First, a sales system might be used under which the lots
would be sold by the company at the highest possible prices
and the profits turned over to some properly constituted public
authority for general purposes. If the company’s plans were
definitely announced, a very substantial sum might be realized
in this fashion. To avoid sacrifices of values, the policy of
distributing the sales over a considerable period would have to
be adopted. There would be involved also the problem of
providing for those persons who prefer to rent rather than buy.

Second, a heavy land tax might be imposed. If, before any
land was sold, a policy of special tax burdens on land was
announced, those burdens would be discounted, and providing
they were less than the value of the expected future rents, the
land would be taken over by purchasers on a basis which might
yield to the public treasury a very large proportion of the
ground rents.

1 The growth of these industrial cities is a phenomenon interestingly discussed by
Graham R., Taylor in his book called Satellite Cities (New York, D. Appleton &
Company, 1915).

94 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

Third, increment taxes might be utilized in place of rates on
all land values, the burden of special taxation being placed
upon the increases in land values above a given datum line.
Probably less could be conserved in this fashion than under the
second plan.

Fourth, the title to the land might be vested in some public
authority and the land leased to persons who would agree to
improve it under proper restrictions. The great disadvantage
of this plan is that it would probably weaken the incentive to
home ownership. In this connection it may be observed that
the Gary Land Company has found difficulty in selling its
houses, the steel workers apparently preferring to rent rather
than to buy. This fourth plan is the only one which could
be expected to secure for common purposes the entire increase
in the value of the land.

No one plan would fit all circumstances, but among the four
there appears to be ample opportunity for adaptation to vary-
ing conditions. Certainly the prize to be gained is of sufficient
value to be worthy of serious endeavor.

ROBERT MURRAY HAIG.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

a

acoeaal

2

“a

comma

ae

amen

WIESER’S THEORY OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS’

pears, is planned as a co-operative venture in nine volumes

to take the place once held by Schonberg’s Handbuch. It is
edited by as distinguished a list of five and forty economists as could
be chosen from the generation of Germans younger than Wagner and
von Schmoller. That these editors turned to von Wieser for their fun-
damental section upon economic theory, and to Schumpeter for their
history of economic doctrines is a piquant triumph for the Austrian
school, whose methods, as Schumpeter ventures to remind us, were
once bitterly contested in Germany, and whose disciples were long
barred from German professorships.’

Wieser’s Social Economics, however, owes none of its prestige to
the company it keeps. In the literature of the Austrian school it
merits the place held by Mill’s Political Economy in the literature of
the classical school. It sums up, systematizes and extends the doc-
trines previously worked out by the author, his master and his fellow
disciples. Like Mill’s great book, it is distinguished by admirable ex-
position—elegant in proportions, mature in expression and authorita-
tive in source. The parallel runs on into the future. In making
classical theory so clear Mill revealed to others defects in his system
which he did not see. Wieser’s work promises to render a similar
service.

In two respects, however, a comparison with Mill does less than
justice to Wieser. This is the first systematic treatise upon economic
theory at large produced by the Austrians proper, whereas several at-
tempts at covering the whole ground of classical economics had been
made before Mill wrote.* Wieser’s economic work is also more orig-
inal than Mill’s. His own early writing ranks higher among the con-

TT? Grundriss der Sozialékonomik, in which this treatise ap-

' Theorie der gesellschaftlichen Wirtschaft. Von Friedrich Freiherrn von Wieser.
(Grundriss der Sozialdkonomik, vol. i, pp. 125-444). Tiibingen, J..C. B, Mohr,
1914.

? Jbid., p. 115.

* Bbhm-Bawerk’s Kapital und Kapitalzins in its final form touches on most prob-
lems of theory; but the whole discussion is organized on monographic lines. Phi-
lippovich’s Grundriss, on the other hand, is eminently systematic—no book more
so; but it is more accurate to say that he took the Austrian analysis into his system,
than to say that he based his system on the Austrian analysis.

95

POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

96

structive contributions which he weaves into a balanced exposition than
do Mill’s Zssays upon some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy.
More than that, in extending the discussion beyond the limits of his
earlier work, Wieser shows again the vigor and independence for which
he has always been notable. Mill was much more than an economist ;
he wrote his Principles at high speed to round out his system of social
philosophy. There was more of his style than of his thinking in many
chapters. Wieser, on the contrary, has lived a concentrated intellec-
tual life, if one may judge by his writings, and has brought his full
power to bear upon every section of this treatise. It is the fruition of
a lifetime’s reflection as well as the crowning achievement of a famous
school.

Although two years and a half have passed since the volume con-
taining Wieser’s contribution was published, I have not been able to
find any review of it in the economic journals, American or foreign.’
This neglect is a loss to other economists even more than it is an in-
justice to the author. Under the circumstances a rather full account of
the book is called for.

I

The ground-plan of Social Economics is a projection of lines which
Wieser sketched in 1884. In writing Ueber den Ursprung und die
Hauptgesetze des wirtschaftlichen Werthes, he analyzed a valuation
made apart from others bya single subject (page 41). Four years later
he built Vatural Value on the foundations laid in the Ursprung des
Werthes,and attempted ‘*‘ to exhaust the entire sphere of the phenom-
ena of value without any exception.’’*? His aim was ‘‘ to find what,
among our forms of value, would continue in a perfect or communist
state, and so to find the permanent basis of all economic life.’’* Ac-
cordingly he imagined ‘‘ a completely organic and most highly rational
community’’ (page 61) as the valuing subject.

Twenty-six years have passed, and the field to be treated has ex-
panded again. Now he does first in logical order what he once did first
in chronological order. Book i is ‘‘ The Theory of the Single Econo-
my.’’ The valuing subject of this economy is a single person (as in the
Ursprung des Werthes) who represents the million-headed population

1 The recent numbers of the German and Austrian journals, however, are not
available.

? Preface, p. xxv of Mrs. C. A. Malloch’s translation.

5 Preface, p. xxxix. The words are Professor William Smart’s, but are published
with Wieser’s approval.

No. 1] WIESER’S THEORY OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS 97

of a nation with modern methods of production (as in Vatural Value).
Again the theoretical problem is to find the laws of value under these
conditions (of course, there is no exchange and no price) ; again the
valuer is a paragon of economic virtue, making no blunders, having no
weakness, swayed by no passions; again the results are conceived to
be pure theory, destined when perfected to constitute a core of doc-
trine common to all schools of the future. Book i might still be an
independent volume, like Vatura/l Value. As part of a general treatise
its relationship to the other parts is that of a foundation upon which
everything else rests.

Books ii, iii, and iv differ from book i in the conditions under
which and the persons by whom valuations are supposed to be made.
One by one the assumptions contrary to fact, employed to make the
‘* single economy” simple, are dropped, and by corresponding stages
the pure theory of book i is elaborated into a theory measurably appli-
cable to real conditions. Thus in book ii (Zheorie der Volkswirt-
schaft) the assumption of a single valuing subject gives place to the
assumption of many different valuing subjects, each following his eco-
nomic interests in a world where social classes exist and competition and
monopoly divide the field. It is still assumed, however, that govern-
ment does not interfere with the pursuit of self-interest. In book iii
( Theorie der Staatswirtschaft) this last assumption is dropped ; it is
now assumed that the individual citizens are subordinated to a state,
which follows an economic policy for the promotion of the common
weal. Finally in book iv ( Zheorie der Weltwirtschaft) the single state
discussed in book iii is supposed to be surrounded by similar states,
and the economic problems arising from their interrelations are faced.

Mill’s Political Economy diverges widely from the narrow path
marked out twelve years earlier in his essay ‘‘ On the Definition of
Political Economy.’’ Wieser on the other hand has scarcely shifted
his position in thirty years. Since he received Menger’s stamp only
one man seems to have changed his thinking—Bohm-Bawerk—and
needless to say that man changed nothing fundamental. The changes
Wieser has made himself are extensions rather than revisions. Zinfache
Wirtschaft, Volkswirtschaft, Staatswirtschaft, Weltwirtschaft—the
main divisions of his theoretical system—grow in due order out of the
basic conceptions that he formulated in 1884.

II

Since Wieser is so consistent with himself, and since book i covers
the ground all economists have traversed with him, there is no need to

98 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (VoL. XXXII

detail the doctrines there propounded. A brief statement supple-
mented by comment upon two important points will suffice.

The theory of the single economy begins with a brief consideration
of the subjective elements in economic processes—man’s aims and
activities, his wants, satisfactions, and attitude toward future wants.
Then the discussion turns to goods as means of satisfaction, the funda-
mental principle of man’s economic dealings with goods, the process
of production, and the three great factors of production—labor, capital,
and land. Later comes the analysis of the interrelations among these
various elements within the economic process, and at the very end a
new definition of value.

In the course of these chapters Wieser expounds again the various
doctrines for which he is known. The term “marginal utility,” which
he invented, still satisfies him ; the view that costs are merely a dis-
guise assumed by the protean law of utility—Wieser’s most important
addition to Menger’s theory—reappears ; more emphatically than ever
Wieser denies that as a rule men discount future in comparison with
present wants (page 155) ; he still insists that capital and land are fun-
damentally distinct categories (pages 172-3) ; he holds fast to the doc-
trine that the value of a stock of similar goods is obtained by multiplying
the number of units by the marginal utility (pages 192-4); and he
restates his theory of imputation—with a difference.

Technically the most important modification of his earlier work is
the widening of the distinction between “monopoly goods” and “ cost
goods,’’ into a distinction between ‘‘ specific means of production” and
‘€ cost means of production ’’ (pages 185-7). The specific means of
production in the strict sense are limited by physical scarcity or by
peculiar quality to a single use, whereas cost means are sufficiently
abundant and sufficiently adaptable to be used in many ways. A cor-
responding distinction is drawn between specific products and cost
products. In general, lands are specific means, while most kinds of
labor and capital goods are cost means.

Now cost means in production and cost products in household man-
agement are subject to accurate adjustments which fit them into the
general scheme of economic activity according to the marginal law.
The only irregularity here arises from the fact that each different want
has its own peculiar scale of satiation, so that men cannot achieve pre-
cisely the same marginal utility in each branch of consumption, but
merely draw ‘‘ a wavering marginal line’’ through all branches. In
production greater precision is attainable. The numerous combina-
tions in which cost means are used in various industries yield equations

ncn, ee ee

No. 1] WIESER’S THEORY OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS 99

sufficient in number to determine what proportion of the utility pro-
duced should be imputed to each, and from this productive contribu.
tion, in conjunction with the marginal utility of the marginal product,
is derived the value at which each unit in each cost good is held in all
its manifold uses (pages 201, 213). And this systematization on the
basis of costs is carried back into the field of consumption. A steel
bridge which as a unit possesses great utility is nevertheless valued only
at the moderate rating derived from the marginal utility of the cost
goods—iron, coal, labor etc., required to produce it.

Specific products and specific means of production are more refrac-
tory. The proportion of the utility produced imputable to a good
serving a single use cannot be worked out directly by means of equa-
tions drawn from different branches of industry. But it can be worked
out indirectly when the other means of production used in co-operation
with it are cost goods. For then in the single equation in which it
appears it is the only unknown. Subtract from the marginal utility of
the product the utilities of the cost means employed, and credit what-
ever utility remains to the specific means of production in question. In
effect, this is the rule that Ricardo applied to land, and that men
really apply to all specific means of production. Of course this pro-
cedure supposes the marginal utility of the specific product to be known.
In fact, however, this item in the economic calculus often lacks defi-
niteness. The marginal utility of a good which serves a single use in
the household may be either above or below the general level of mar-
ginal utilities in most lines of consumption, depending upon its scarcity
or abundance in comparison with the amount required to satisfy the
want, the initial intensity of that want, and its rate of satiation. But
whatever that somewhat indefinite rating may be, it is handed on by
imputation to the specific means of production after the standard de-
ductions have been made for the cost means.

To this modification of his earlier exposition Wieser attaches great
importance. The distinction between specific means of production
and cost means, he says, together with the corresponding distinction
between specific and cost products, gives ‘‘ the exhaustive objective
basis for all the chief problems of the economic calculus ’’ (page 188).
He thinks that its application in the problems of imputation meets
what is valid in Bohm-Bawerk’s criticisms of the exposition given in
Natural Value

1 Positive Theorie des Kapitales, 3d ed., excursus vii.

100 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL.. XXXII

III

Theoretically the most interesting feature of book i is Wieser’s con-
ception of economic calculus. The gist of economic activity and there-
fore the central problem of economic theory is rational control over
the process of meeting wants. The aim of this rational control is to
secure the maximum utility possible under the circumstances. This aim
implies that the calculations shall be made in ‘‘ utility units ’’—/Vuéz-
einheiten—a term which Wieser freely employs. But what are these
utility units? The primary values are the values attached to the satis-
faction of wants (page 151). ‘ Primary want-values, however, are
not subject to numerical computation, since they cannot be reduced to
a common denominator’’ (page 215). They have not numerical
magnitudes, but merely intensity magnitudes. How, then, can there
be an economic calculus in terms of utility units, even in the single
economy where there is no question concerning comparisons among
the feelings of different men?

This is the difficulty which so many economists have felt in develop-
ing what Jevons called the ‘‘ mechanics of utility.’’ Professor Edge-
worth faced it squarely in 1881, and proposed to use ‘‘a unit of
pleasure” which has three dimensions—intensity, time, number.’
Marshall adopted another solution. He dealt not with utility units but
with the ‘‘ money measures ” of desires and satisfactions, and assumed,
whenever the problem required, that equal sums of money represent on
the average equal feelings to groups in similar economic circumstances.
Pareto, combining suggestions made by Irving Fisher and Edgeworth,
has tried to avoid the whole difficulty, to cast all metaphysical entities
out of his system by developing a “ theory of choice.’? Wicksteed’s plan
of dealing with “ preferences,’’ Davenport’s conclusion that economics is
merely the “ science of prices,’’ and Fetter’s effort to restate the theory
of value without using marginal utility are variants of Pareto’s scheme.
All of these recent emendations betray distrust of the ‘‘ hedonism ”’
which is said to lurk in marginal analysis.

In the midst of these latter-day doubts, Wieser stands firmly for
the old Austrian doctrine carefully interpreted. He denies that ‘‘ the
economic principle of maximum utility” is ‘‘ bound up with a hedon-
istic view of life ” (page 152) ; and yet justifies himself in using ‘‘ utility
units ’’ as the basis of his economic calculus. After admitting that our
primary want-values have not numerical but merely intensity magni-
tudes, he argues as follows: While the intensities of different wants

1 Mathematical Psychics, appendix iii.

eae

No. 1] WIESER’S THEORY OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS 1OI

cannot be measured, they can be compared. The results of such com-
parisons, it is true, do not go beyond statements of equality or difference.
Thus one cannot say how many times greater is intense hunger than a
simple esthetic longing; but one knows there is a wide difference
between them, and one can even give this difference a somewhat more
definite expression by naming a whole list of desires less intense than
the first and more intense than the second. Now, he asserts—and
this is the gist of his position—ability to discriminate equal, greater,
and less intensity magnitudes among our desires, limited as it is, yet
suffices to solve the practical problems of controlling economic activity.
How so?

To maximize the utility derived from goods is the aim of economic
effort. With a single good this aim requires the application of the
article to the most intense want it is capable of satisfying. That want
can be found by anyone who is able to tell the more from the less in-
tense. The same equipment suffices to apportion properly the different
units in a stock of similar goods; it is necessary only to make sure
that no unit is applied to the satisfaction of a less intense want when
it might have been used to satisfy a more intense rival. And when
the stock is valued as a whole one merely multiplies the number of
units by the marginal utility. ‘‘ The units of quantity are at the same
time units of utility, and when one computes them as units of mass one
is also computing their utility.’”’ Estimates made in this way, of
course, tell nothing about amount of satisfaction gained ; but that is
not ‘‘ the task of the economic utility calculus, which has merely to
find the margin up to which one dare carry his gratifications.’’ The
whole ‘* surplus utility ’’ above the margin is neglected.

This marginal law, applicable to all divisible stocks, attains its full
significance through the law of cost and the law of imputation. The
first permits one to analyze all cost products—Wieser’s new term re-
ferred to above—into multiples of cost units, and the cost units are
made comparable with one another by the law of imputation which
expresses them in the common utility units of their marginal products.
Thus the whole mass of varied cost products and cost means which a
people possesses is converted into a single vast supply, the magnitude
of which can be reckoned in cost units of any kind desired—for ex-
ample labor units—and by means of these cost units translated finally
into any kind of utility units desired. Here we have the basis for a
general scheme both of household management and of production
which marks out accurately the margin up to which consumption and
production should be carried in all branches and beyond which they
should cease.

102 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [Vo.. XXXII

The specific products make more trouble ; for their marginal utilities
deviate from the general margin, being a little higher or a little lower.
A numerical magnitude cannot be set upon these deviations ; for that
is a matter of primary want values, which as has been said cannot be
computed. But even in this case mankind has discovered a way of
assigning numerical values. Practice derives these numerical values
from the quantities of the products which balance each other on the
general marginal line. One cannot make a quantitative comparison
between the gratification derived from wearing sable and that derived
from eating bread ; but one can find the quantity of bread which has
utility equal to that of a sable skin, for the relationship of equality can
be established between different intensity magnitudes. In this way
even the specific products are brought into the general economic cal-
culus, one can tell what costs can rightly be incurred for a sable skin
as accurately as for a sack of flour.

Wieser admits that the practical serviceability of this calculus is
subject to three qualifications: (1) Changes in methods of production
disturb the accurate adjustments between costs and products; while
these disturbances continue, the cost goods affected must be treated as
specific goods. (2) Comparisons between periods far apart as well
as between different “economies” are not feasible because the utility
units have not the same meaning. (3) The calculus becomes posi-
tively misleading whenever the decline in marginal utility outruns the
increase in the supply, so that the total utility of the stock reckoned
by multiplication falls off. In such cases production must be guided
not by marginal utility, but by a vaguer estimate of total utility (§ 22).

So far von Wieser. His argument is that of his Ursprung des
Werthes modified by his new distinction between specific and cost
goods. The whole discussion, it will be noticed, purports to be a
descriptive analysis of economic activity reduced to essentials. Does
it really imply that men do their economic thinking in “ utility units”?
Certainly not in the sense that any man has a unit of feeling,
equipped with which he goes about measuring gratifications of different
kinds. In dealing with goods of different kinds men are supposed to
measure them by the physical units appropriate to each kind, units of
length, of weight, of cubic content etc. Utility does come into the
problem in the sense that every physical unit of every kind of goods
gets its significance for every individual from the marginal contribution
that unit makes to the gratification of his wants. To repeat, physical
units are at the same time utility units, and whenever we reckon by
yards, or pounds, or bushels, our quantities have economic meaning

No. 1] WIESER’S THEORY OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS 103

because these units of the good in question are likewise units of utility.
There is no more one unit of utility than there is one unit of quantity.
But one can determine whether he prefers a pound of tea or a dozen
eggs, and when he answers that question he is comparing utilities
whether he knows it or not. We have no common denominator of
feelings ; but merely a balance telling that one of two different things
is weightier in importance, or that the two are equal. That balance,
however, suffices to enable us to make rational choices.

IV

All this leads up to a new definition of economic value: ‘‘ the effec-
tiveness for economic purposes associated with the portions of goods
and portions of labor that are used.’’ Wieser contrasts this definition
with Menger’s famous one: ‘‘ the importance which concrete goods,
or quantities of goods, receive for us from the fact that we are consci-
ous of being dependent on our disposal over them for the satisfaction
of our wants.’’' His own definition is wider than Menger’s in that it
includes labor as well as commodities, but narrower in that it refers
only to economic value proper, while Menger defines our fondness for
things at large (Sachliebe iiberhaupt). The subjective origin of econo-
mic value, Wieser adds in explanation, does not in practice stand out
so clearly in consciousness as Menger’s definition suggests. The new
definition with its more objective phrasing better describes what men
are actually conscious of in their economic activity. ‘‘ The effective-
ness for economic purposes, of which we speak, has reference primarily
to external relationships within the economic activity.’’ As Wieser
remarked near the beginning, economics is immediately concerned
not with satisfying wants, but with providing the means of satisfaction
(page 143).

V

Having shown how a single subject controls his economic activity,
Wieser turns in book ii to the problem of how a number of persons
following their economic interests under a régime of private property
meet in exchange, and constitute a social economy upon the basis of
prices. So far as competition with equal opportunities for all prevails
in such a society, he holds that the pursuit of self-interest will promote

'In the original, ‘* die Geltung, die beim Wirtschaften den verwendeten Teilgiitern
und Teilarbeiten assoziiert wird; ’’ ‘‘die Bedeutung, welche konkrete Giiter oder
Giiterquantitaten fiir uns dadurch erlangen, dass wir in der Befriedigung unserer
Bediirfnisse von der Verfiigung tiber dieselben abhingig zu sein uns bewusst sind”

{pp. 230-231].

104 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL.. XXXII

public welfare (page 138). If that were the whole truth, society might
be regarded after the classical fashion as an aggregate of simple eco-
nomies. But that conception of society is clearly inadequate today.
The problem of monopoly is practically more pressing than the prob-
lem of free competition ; instead of equal opportunity for all there is a
struggle between the strong and the weak. What is the nature and the
origin of this inequality in power? Where lies the unity of society?
An economic sociology is needed to answer these questions. Wieser
supplies it with all possible brevity.

Men are by nature social beings, he says, held together by two kinds
of social forces, the forces of freedom and the forces of compulsion.
United action requires leadership, and the mass of men show their in-
dependence chiefly in choosing what leader they shall obey, or how
faithfully they shall follow the examples set them. In the last resort,
however, acceptance or rejection by the masses is the decisive factor ;
the leaders must follow their followers. Within the realm of private
life, indeed, the leaders have little coercive authority ; they come and
go rapidly ; they are so numerous as to become anonymous; to the
masses they stand for freedom rather than compulsion. This anony-
mous leadership in detail does no more than conserve what society has
attained, or make slow advances along lines clearly marked out.
Greater changes require greater leaders, who become personally con-
spicuous and focus the forces of compulsion.

Now leadership, which is necessary to progress, rests upon social
inequality. The relations of ruler and subject grow into a stratification
of classes; on the economic side the ‘‘ Have-and-Holders ’’ confront
the ‘‘ Have-Nots.” No theory of exchange which neglects differences
in power between these classes explains what happens in the market
place. For the social stratification is not merely an objective fact ; it
molds men according to its image. Their wants, their impulses, their
very egoisms are dominated by social forces; subordination becomes
comfortable. The economic principle of least cost and highest utility
does not rule men’s actions in the way assumed in the theory of the
simple economy ; rather it assumes this form: ‘‘ Be as good an eco-
nomic man as your fellows.’’ Moreover, through the initiative of
leaders and through imitative acceptance by the masses, society develops
certain institutions serving the common needs so well as to seem like
the creation of an organized social will. Money, markets, division of
labor, the social economy itself are such creations. They make an
essential part of the historical situation into which the individual is
born, bonds which unite him to his fellows and establish conditions to
which his individual efforts are subjected.

“

bi

'
3

Pe a gememti ete

No. 1] WIESER’S THEORY OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS 105

VI

Upon this theory of economic society and his theory of the single
economy, Wieser builds his theory of exchange. He starts with barter,
then turns to markets, and money prices under competitive, monopo-
listic and ‘*‘ monopoloidal’’ conditions, when business is normal, and
in times of panic when ‘‘ the marginal law loses its effectiveness ”’
(page 264). The various forms of money, credit, the general level of
prices, money capital and its formation, the money and investment
markets are all treated with point and brevity.

Perhaps the most unusual feature of the whole discussion is that it
really does rest upon its alleged foundations. Personal valuations and
personal adjustments among costs and utilities continue to play the
fundamental role assigned them in the theory of the single economy.
But not for a moment does Wieser forget that the whole process is
twisted into new shape by the inequalities emphasized in his theory of
economic society. For example, price is a social product, not by
virtue of a valuation made by society, but as the result of a social con-
flict for the possession of goods waged between men who differ radically
in their valuations and their power as demanders. Therefore price is
fixed not by marginal utility as such, but by a socially stratified marginal
utility (pages 259, 260). Again, in an exchange economy marginal
costs do not tend to coincide with marginal utilities as they do in the
single economy (page 271). Once more, in our stratified society even
competition no longer results in a natural selection of the ablest enter-
prisers ; large capital may outweigh superior ability (page 274). And
besides, the field is largely occupied by concerns with monopolistic and
monopoloidal advantages ; the ‘‘ excessive competition” of the strong
and the ‘* excessive competition ’’ of the weak are to be reckoned with
(page 273).

Exchange value is ‘‘ the efficiency which the object and the medium
of exchange have by virtue of their exchange relations within the eco-
nomic process.’’ Of the two forms it assumes, subjective, or better,
personal exchange value is the more fundamental. This is the mediated
or indirect use-value in mind when one thinks of the efficiency for his
purposes of that which a good will command in exchange (page 287).
The objective, or better, the economic exchange value of a commodity
—its ‘‘ efficiency in the social economic process ’’—is its money price,
society’s rating which controls the expenditure of costs in producing it,
and which controls likewise the uses to which it may be put (page 291).
In modern communities the economic calculus is made in terms of
money ; but this reckoning in money is at the same time a reckoning

|
|
|

106 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY __ [Vot. XXXII

in utility units, which of course differ from household to household.
If incomes, needs, and values were alike for all households, the money
calculus would correspond exactly with the calculus of the simple eco-
nomy ; but, as matters stand, the richer classes can extend their utility
margins much farther down the scale of satiation than the poorer classes
(pages 340, 341).

Exchange and its mechanism lead on to social production and dis-
tribution of income. Wieser’s theory of distribution is on the one
hand a continuation of his theory of prices, and on the other hand a
continuation of his theory of imputation applied to the factors of pro-
duction where economic classes have been differentiated (page 359).
There is an economic rent, interest, profit, and wage ascertainable by
imputation, and a contract rent, interest, and wage, though of course
not a contract profit, determined on the basis of the first in the form
of prices. Wieser gives us in substance a Ricardian theory of rent, a
productivity theory of interest with a time-discount appendage to take
care of consumer’s loans, and a residual-claimant theory of profits.
Perhaps the last phrase has misleading implications. Enterprisers’
incomes include wages for labor of management, interest on invested
capital, and profits proper—what remains. This remainder, when
there is one, enters into the calculus by virtue of specific imputation
as the product of the enterpriser’s function (page 374). As for wages,
they are fixed in the last resort by the marginal contribution imputed
to labor (page 384).

VII

Wieser cannot leave distribution without dilating upon the errors
inherent in the capitalistic calculus of exchange values. On this head
he winds up :

The judgment of history upon the present condition of labor under cap-
talism cannot be rendered until its trend has been made clear by future
developments. If our times show themselves to have been a transition
historically necessary for providing a secure and human existence for ele-
ments of the population left in want by earlier times, then it will finally
merit that wondering praise heaped today upon its technical inventions.
But if society splits into a small class of exceedingly rich and a proletarian
mass, while the middle classes nearly disappear ; or even if the status of
today becomes fixed and unchanging, then the much-admired era of capi-
italistic technique and organization will be condemned as the ending of
civilization. For the time being the saying of ... . Férster applies:
‘* Morally and spiritually modern society is unequal to the task of using the
enormous material power harnessed by its science and technique"’ [page

397]-

No. 1] WIESER’S THEORY OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS 107

Most of us are ready to stop with some such safe verdict of the
‘‘ either or’’ variety. Notso Wieser. The meaning of social economy
is not made clear in his eyes until the question is answered whether
private property itself is compatible with what social economy stands
for. As he phrases the question for purposes of attack, ‘‘ Is private
property imposed by the strong, or is it maintained by the community’s
common sense? ’’

In answering this question Wieser takes up the historical development
of private property in medieval and modern times. The transition
from the manorial and gild systems to capitalism was accompanied by
and in large part consisted in removing restrictions upon economic
freedom. Organization based upon individual initiative and private
property won a complete victory over feudalism ; and this victory was
due to no external force but to the inherent economic superiority of
the new system. In part this revolution was sanctioned by changes in
the written law; but the essential content of economic individualism
has sustained itself by its own strength ; it has remained unwritten law.
Neither the fact that the social process of industrial production is seg-
regated into parts under individual control, and that the national
wealth is divided up among private citizens, nor the fact that the state
and other governmental agencies play a secondary role in economic
life, is ordained by statutes. Yet these facts are the foundation that
determines the character of modern economic organization ; they even
lend the written economic law its wide importance. Institutions of
such crucial significance could develop without legal enactment only
because of the strong appeal they made to men’s economic judgment.
Historically the older system of constraint was justified ; it was neces-
sary to subordinate personal interest to the commonweal. But eco-
nomic freedom through the cumulative social training it gave to
individuals won an ever greater security, until the time came when
compulsion could be dispensed with. The superiority of the new sys-
tem consists at bottom in this: it bends the colossal energy of egoism
to the service of public welfare.

Thus capitalism in its earlier stages was one of the forces of freedom
and with its definitive victory came in the /aissez- faire doctrine of the
classical economists. But the new system of freedom promptly devel-
oped a despotism of its own. Profits obtained from the sheer financial
control over markets without the exercise of social] leadership, the cre-
ation of a laboring proletariat, the reduction of work to a mechanical
routine, the physical and moral degradation of the lower classes—these
phenomena of capitalism are socially irrational, anti-economic.

a

108 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

Hence the chief problem of domestic politics today is to protect the
commonweal against the despotic might of capital. The classical
doctrine of non-intervention assures the maximum of social utility only
when there is general equality of power. Where that condition fails,”
the state must protect the weak against exploitation. There can be no
doubt, Wieser believes, that the modern theory of utility when thor-
oughly worked out will afford the basis for guiding economic policy
toward this end. The controlling aim must be the highest attainable
social utility ; the utility theory will show under what conditions this
end can and under what it can not be attained. Even in the present
state of the theory certain fundamental principles can be laid down for
the guidance of economic policy.

(1) The intervention of the state to prevent economic freedom from
breeding economic oppression is in complete harmony with economic
rationality. (2) Outside the field occupied by the greater capitalism
economic individualism still maintains its historical success. An alter-
ation of fundamental economic institutions is therefore unreasonable.
(3) Such a reorganization of large-scale productive enterprises is
desirable as will split the difference between industrial despotism and
industrial democracy, somewhat as constitutional monarchy splits the
difference between absolutism and republicanism. (4) With reference
to organizations both of capital and of labor, the state must discrimi-
nate those which promote industrial peace and efficiency from those
others which merely secure monopolistic advantages to their members.
(5) In general, private exchange value plays a wholesome role even in
our capitalistic times. But where the state seeks to complement or cor-
rect the economic process as it works in private hands, it must make its
own independent valuations (pages 412-414). ‘The theoretical basis
of these valuations requires a special investigation, which occupies the
next book.

VIII

Book iii ( Zheorie der Staatswirtschaft) aims to describe the ways
in which the economy of the state differs from private economy. It
aims less at the immediate gratification of wants than at the protec-
tion and development of gratifications ; and less at turning out tangible
goods than at furthering social production as a whole. Third, it pro-
vides the income necessary to pay for its services to the commonweal
by compulsory levies such as no individual can impose.

These peculiarities of the economy of the state express themselves
in the state’s valuations. So far as it engages in strictly business

No. 1] WIESER’S THEORY OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS 109

undertakings, the state reckons like any enterpriser in terms of ex-
change value. In the various branches of public administration also,
the post office, state railways etc., it must base its calculus upon ex-
change value, but not upon that alone. It takes social utility into
account, as when it sells workingmen’s railway tickets at unprofitably
low rates. In still other departments where the service rendered is not
sold, for example in building and maintaining roads, these considera-
tions of social, or more accurately, state utility become the controlling
factor.

Whenever the goods or services it buys are divisible into parts, the
state can follow the trouble-saving marginal law in its use of exchange
value or utility. But in many cases it must value things which cannot
be divided, which must be taken or rejected as wholes, for example, a
railway line needed for national defense though not economically self-
supporting. Here the state must fall back upon the total utility of the
thing in question. Even then, however, the state treats the particular
commodities and services it requires as divisible goods. But in its
valuations of labor it diverges from the business man’s attitude. To
the state, labor is not a mere commodity to be bought at the market
price ; the laborer is a citizen whose welfare is of concern to society.

All these seeming inconsistencies in the modes of valuation followed
by the state are reconciled when one remembers that they are merely
the roads through different districts to a single goal—the maximizing
of utility. The vagueness of total utility, its incalculable character as
opposed to marginal utility, is responsible for much of the uncertainty
and for many of the differences of opinion concerning state policies.

The principle of greatest utility determines not only what the state
should undertake, but also how it should distribute the cost. The con-
cept of subjective or personal value affords the theoretical basis for
taxation according to faculty with its progressive rates. But, Wieser
adds with characteristic caution, the state is not justified in using pro-
gressive taxes to equalize the distribution of incomes and property ; for
it has been shown that the individualistic organization of economic life
is to be respected as an historically sanctioned form of society, and
with that organization goes its legitimate consequence of inequality in
wealth.

IX

The brief fourth book, with which the treatise closes, is devoted
primarily to showing how the We/twirtscha/t differs from the Volkswirt-

—

Te ee

————

110 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [Vou XXXII

schaft. The former possesses no such unity as the latter in_ political
organization, historical development, or social culture. Hence the
tendency to establish an equilibrium in economic affairs is much less
marked in the world at large than within the several nations. This
difference appears clearly in the matter of prices ; the number of goods
that really have a world market is relatively small. Even interest on
capital is not reduced to the same level in different countries. That
means that the purchasing power of money is not equalized. The
classical theory that gold flows away from the places where its value is
low to places where its value is high does not hold true. The inter-
national balance of payments is simply a result of the fact that each
family within a nation must maintain a balance of payments. Nor
were the classical economists right in proclaiming free trade advan-
tageous for all countries. Friedrich List’s policy of protective tariffs to
develop home industries is sound. Nations are debarred from entering
upon a diversified industrial development less by lack of natural re-
sources, as the classicists implied, than by lack of technical knowledge,
business experience and capital. These requisites do not flow freely
across international boundaries as they do to different sections of a
single country ; but they can be developed at home if protected for
a time :

For a nation menaced by superior foreign competition, a well-considered
system of protective duties assures in the long run the furthest attainable
stretching of the economic utility margins, and in the last resort it assures
this same desideratum to the whole world economy, since it brings about
the greatest attainable equality of development [page 444].

X

In the preceding pages, I have tried to give an accurate sketch of
Wieser’s system of theory—to indicate its scope, its articulation, and
its main conclusions. But to me the most interesting feature of the
book is the writer’s attitude toward his own work.

When von Wieser published this treatise, Menger’s Volkswirtscha/fts-
lehre lay more years behind him than Ricardo’s Political Economy lay
behind Mill when Mill published his Princif/es. In the meantime the
utility theory has been as much discussed, as variously judged, and
as thoroughly tried out as classical political economy in its day. It has
passed through a time of cold neglect, a time of hot controversy, and
a time of temperate acceptance. It has been extolled as a revolution-
ary discovery, and depreciated as a minor variant of classical doctrine ;

No. 1] WIESER’S THEORY OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS III

adopted as a substitute for Marxism by one set of socialists,’ and de-
cried as a covert defence of the established order by another set;
buried as a corpse infected with hedonism and resurrected as an innoc-
uous theory of choice. The three original strains of the theory,
English, Austrian, and French, have been cultivated independently,
crossed upon each other, blended with other types, and fertilized by
new ideas, giving rise in this process of experimentation to a bewilder-
ing variety of doctrines.

Wieser has seen all this happen since he sat at Menger’s feet. He
can read his own contributions in every history of modern economics,
and meet his critics in every economic journal. He has had years for
reflection. We know that he holds fast to the fundamentals of his
youth ; but how does he justify that attitude? How is his version of
the Austrian doctrine related to other types of economic theory?
Above all, what service does he render toward an understanding of
economic behavior?

xI

At the very outset Wieser ranks himself in the psychological school.
‘‘ The following investigation,” runs his first sentence, ‘‘ employs that
method which people have been wont of late to designate as ‘ psycho-
logical’ .”. This term is appropriate in that the theory starts with the
subjective aspect of economic activity and works outward to account
for objective facts, but inappropriate in that it suggests that economics
is based upon the science of psychology, which is by no means the case.
‘« The observations of man’s inner life developed by ‘ psychological ’
economics are independently made, and will remain quite unaffected
by whatever conclusion scientific psychology may reach regarding the
fundamental character of consciousness . . .’”’

The task of economic theory is to exploit scientifically and interpret the
content of common economic experience. . . . In this work it need not
follow connections in the individual’s mind further than is necessary to
make clear the sense of his behavior ; from more penetrating psychological
analysis it should refrain. The consciousness of economic men offers a
mine of experiences, possessed by every one practically engaged in eco-
nomic activity—experiences which every theorist therefore finds ready
within himself, so that he needs no scientific apparatus to assemble them.
There are experiences of outer facts, for example the existence of goods
and their kinds ; there are experiences of inner facts, for example human

'See Bernard Shaw, ‘‘ On the History of Fabian Economics,’’ in History of the
Fabian Society, by Edward R. Pease, appendix i.

A a Pe

SSS Sets

112 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [Vou XXXII

needs and their laws ; there are experiences of how the economic activity
of the mass of men arisesand runson. .. . The scope of economic theory
is just as wide as these common experiences. The theorist’s task always
ends when common experience ends, and where science must assemble its
observations by historical or statistical work, or, in some other supposedly
reliable way [page 133].

This ‘* psychological method ”’ is “ empirical ; it rests upon observa-
tion and has no other aim than to describe reality.” But while the
historian strives to present a given situation in its full idiosyncrasy,
while the statistician tries to count all pertinent cases, the theorist
limits himself to what is typical, neglecting the secondary, the acciden-
tal, the peculiar. To this end he avails himself of the devices of iso-
lating and idealizing.

The complex presented by experience cannot be explained in its totality,
one must isolate and split it up into its elements in order to comprehend
their working ; further one must keep these elements in thought free from
all disturbances, in order to comprehend their unmixed effects, and if in
thought one finally admits disturbances one must take these very distur-
bances in their typical course, omitting everything accidental. . . . Beside
the isolating assumptions that contain less than the full truth, the theoretical
economist makes many idealizing assumptions that contain more than the
truth. In them he elevates the empirical case in thought to the highest
conceivable degree of completeness, because the completest situation is at
the same time the simplest and therefore the most comprehensible. Thus,
for example, the theorist assumes a model economic man such as never
has existed and never can exist in fact.

The theorist begins his work ‘‘ with isolating and idealizing assump-
tions of the highest degree of abstraction, in which he includes the
pure elements of reality.’’ Then step by step he introduces assump-
tions of greater concreteness and so approximates a description of
experience, though without ever attempting to reach the limit of the
full detail (pages 134, 135).

XII

Such is the writer’s preliminary statement regarding the scope
and method of his work. What are the reader’s final impressions of
Wieser’s results?

He may sum up the treatise as follows: Economic activity is the
exercise of rational control over the process of providing for wants ;
its aim is to secure the maximum satisfaction possible under the cir-

emesis EN WANN ree:

*
— enstentteltllly: WAR a mom ti

No. 1] WIESER’S THEORY OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS 113

cumstances ; its instrument is the utility calculus. The theory is an
elaborate analysis of this calculus, first as it would be conducted by a
single, perfect economic man ; next as it is conducted by many men
living under a régime of nominally free contract and private property
unequally distributed ; then as it should be conducted by a single state
aiming at the welfare of its citizens ; finally as it should be conducted
by one among several states.

‘¢ Psychological ’’ is certainly a misleading term to apply to such
theory, not merely for Wieser’s reason, that it implies the dependence
of economics upon psychology, but because it implies an intention to
explain how men’s minds actually work in economic behavior. ‘ Log-
ical’’ would be a more accurate adjective. For, even more than most
members of his school, Wieser deals not with economic activity as it is,
but with economic activity as it logically ought to be. His work is not
a positive, but a normative theory.

There is no mistaking that conclusion in books i, iii and iv. We
are not left to inference ; Wieser declares his position explicitly :

The way in which economic theory presents its description of the laws of
economic valuing and economic acting, differs strikingly from the way in
which the natural sciences present their laws of nature. The natural
sciences show us a necessary connection between cause and effect—what
must be ; economic theory shows us a connection which follows under the
pressure of economic duty—what ought to be; economic valuation is the
valuation which economic duty demands, economic action is the econom-
ically requisite action [page 152].

And so, on page after page, one finds the discussion concerned with
what a good economic subject, whether an individual or a state, must
do to attain his end of maximizing satisfaction.

Even book ii (Zheorie der Volkswirtschaft) deals less with how
men do behave than with why their behavior diverges from what it
ought logically to be. Wieser’s theory of economic society shows how
inequality arises; his theory of prices and of distribution shows the
Struggle between the effects of inequality and the demands of ‘‘ eco-
nomic duty ;’’ his program of economic reform shows how far the state
should go in reducing inequality.'| The ‘* pure elements of reality”
(page 135) presented in the theory of the single economy are to Wieser’s
mind not only the fundamental economic truth, but also the standard
by which to try the imperfect world of business dealings, and the guide
by which to mend what is there amiss.

1 See sections v, vi and vii above.

114 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (VoL. XXXII

XIII

Both in his normative conception of economics and in his program
of moderate reform, Wieser stands close to the classical economists.
For their work he expresses the warmest admiration. The classical
theory, says his preface, is ‘‘ one of the most splendid and practically
significant achievements of the scientific spirit, and despite all opposi-
tion it will not wholly lose its influence upon theory and practice so
long as its place is not filled by a maturer doctrine.’’ For this maturer
doctrine he hopes a practical success like that which the elder English
economists attained.

As the times of the classicists needed a theory of economic freedom, so our
times need a modern theory, which represents the practical tendencies of
the present in their true meaning ; which sees both lights and shadows,
guarding against optimism and pessimism alike ; which recognizes not only
the community of interests but also the existence of force, struggle, and
economic evil; which provides a theoretical basis for economic freedom,
and also for the necessary limitations upon it [page 136].

Concretely, this turns out to mean the maintenance of private property
and such inequalities of wealth as do not arise from unfair competition.’
So Bentham or Ricardo might have advised had they lived long enough
to see free competition begetting monopoly and requiring state inter-
vention to undo its work.

For the mathematical economists and their theory of static equi-
librium, on the contrary, Wieser has little use. He will not allow his
system of logic to be turned into a system of mechanics. To him the
central element in economics is man’s planning, and he becomes un-
easy when a mathematician replaces human nature by a set of equations.
Besides, he argues, nature yields some goods abundantly, some moder-
ately, some scantily ; while this fact remains it is vain to talk about
establishing an equilibrium in all branches of production. Similarly,
the differences between the satiation scales of various wants prevent
our reaching an equilibrium in all branches of consumption. Marginal
boundaries, not equilibria, represent the facts and should therefore be
represented by the theory (pages 164, 165).

XIV

The advantages of Wieser’s type of economic theory are evident.
To show what economic men logically ought to do is far easier than to

? See section vii above.

No. 1]

WIESER’S THEORY OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS 115

show what they dodo. For this purpose, as Wieser says, the theorist
needs no historical or statistical apparatus; he has simply to analyze
that treasure of common experiences which he finds ready within him-
self. Beside being easy to make, such theory meets the human appeal
for guidance toward reform. One has only to accept economic duty
as moral duty ; then, whenever facts diverge from the theory, the facts
are wrong, though none the less facts, and wrong in ways which the
theory shows how to correct. Another shift fits the theory to pass as
scientific. Grant that men are essentially rational; then the theory
reveals substantial economic truth. Discrepancies between this sub-
stantial truth and the literal truth are accounted for by showing that
existing inequalities imply subordination and that subordination weakens
the economic judgment as well as reduces economic power. These
three advantages, indeed, are not peculiar to Austrian theory; they
are shared by classical economics. But for the Austrians a fourth
advantage may be claimed: they seem to be more profound than the
classical masters in that they base their whole analysis upon man’s
ultimate economic interest, the gratification of wants. Finally, as
opposed to much modern work, Austrian theory in general and Wieser’s
version in particular is agreeably realistic ; it deals with human plan-
ning, not with mathematical abstractions.

To make the defects of the theory as clear as. its merits, one must
take the psychological viewpoint in sober earnest—far more seriously
than Wieser takes it. Seen from this viewpoint, economics is one
among several sciences which deal with different aspects of human be-
havior. It is, of course, a social science ; that is, it deals with the be-
havior of men in organized communities. Its special province is the
behavior of social groups in providing the means for attaining their
various ends.

Now human behavior can be studied either from outside or from
inside the human being. An economist may observe and record what
men do in business, as a meteorologist observes and records the weather.
An economic historian may study the recorded observations of others
on human behavior, as a geologist studies evidences of former condi-
tions of the earth’s crust. And these objective students may try to
frame illuminating generalizations about human behavior, without the
aid of suppositions concerning human aims. Such work is as truly
part of economic theory from the psychological viewpoint as is the
Austrian analysis. Contemporary observation indeed is that part of
economic theory in which the most rigorous standards can be applied,
the most refined analysis developed, and the best-grounded hopes

Sein ST

end ae ag nae ee poe eee

or

So

116 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

entertained for improvements in data and results. But work of this
objective kind cannot be done without the statistical and historical
apparatus which Wieser rejects.

Most economic theorists, however, elect to study behavior from inside
the individual. Introspection of their own feelings and common obser-
vation provide the data ; common sense decides what items in the array
are typical ; common logic weaves these items into a theory. This is
the most intimately human and the most treacherous of all professedly
scientific methods. The classical economists employed it in the early
stages of theorizing with more justification than any writer of today can
claim ; yet they admitted the need of a safeguard, ‘‘ inductive verifica-
tion.’’ Wieser, however, will not let a theorist use the statistical and
historical apparatus which such verification requires ; when anyone does
use these aids he ceases to be a theorist." Another safeguard has been
invented by the mathematical economists. After making an (imagin-
ary) photograph of each individual’s “ curves of indifference,’’ they
throw away the rest of human nature, and demonstrate mathematically
that one composite and only one can be made from a given set of
negatives. But neither will Wieser join this company. He will not
limit his theorizing to the simplest problems or put his reasoning into
the severest form. Still a third way of guarding against errors and
omissions remains. The economist who works from inside the human
mind might seek all the aid possible from psychology. Wieser will
have no such aid.

Yet if he had been willing to utilize psychology, Wieser might have
made out a better case for his own theory. The behavior which con-
cerns the economist is directed chiefly by certain social institutions,
that is, by certain widely-shared habits of feeling, thinking, and acting
in frequently-recurring situations. These habits, like our space percep-
tions, have elaborate implications which are not immediately apparent.
It is useful to think out these implications carefully, as it is useful to

1 Although Wieser occasionally refers to history, for example in discussing the rise
of the money economy (pp. 327-9), the differentiation of economic classes from
antiquity to modern times (pp. 348-351), and the development of large business
enterprise (pp. 355-6), his references are so general in their terms as hardly to justify
the charge of inconsistency. The only case in which his theory really bases its va-
lidity upon historical data occurs when he discusses the problem whether private
property is compatible with true social economy. The answer to this question, he
admits, cannot be deduced from the psychology of the model economic man (p.
403). But the historical sketch by which he justifies his faith in private property as
a proper economic institution is, as he points out (p. 400), very much a theorist’s
version of history.

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No. 1] WIESER’S THEORY OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS 117

excogitate geometry. Such elaboration is by no means the whole task
of economic theory, but it is part of the task. Wieser expounds the
Austrian contribution to this logic of economic institutions better than
any of his compatriots ; but his work would have been more effective
if he had seen the place his contribution occupies in the study of
behavior.

A man who realizes that he is studying an institution keeps his work
in historical perspective, even when he confines himself to analyzing
the form which the institution has assumed at a particular stage of its
evolution. By so doing he opens vistas enticing to future exploration,
instead of suggesting a closed system of knowledge. He does not de-
lude himself into believing that anyone’s personal experience is an
adequate basis for theorizing about how men behave ; rather is he eager
to profit by any light shed upon his problem by any branch of learning
—history, statistics, ethnology, psychology.

More particularly, a student of economic institutions recognizes that
business accounting is much more thoroughly rationalized than house-
hold accounting, that the money calculus is better thought out than the
utility calculus. Hence he does not picture economic logic as having
its stronghold in the single economy, without money and without price.
To him money is a powerful instrument of theoretical analysis, because
money is the most effective practical instrument for systematizing eco-
nomic control, and because its use enforces the strictest discipline upon

" vague and careless human nature. As Wieser remarks, the most per-

fect cases are the simplest and easiest to analyze. It follows that eco-
nomic theory should begin with the most thoroughly organized money
prices, instead of postponing money to a late stage of the investigation.
When the definite and objective interrelations among money prices
have been analyzed it is time enough to penetrate into the dim mysteries
of our feelings about utilities, and to inquire how the logical system of
control men learn in business dealings is related to their subjective
valuations.

When the latter problem is approached, the economist who still re-
members that he is a student of institutions finds more work and more
materials on hand than Wieser dreams. It is an old and valid criticism
that the Austrian theory of value throws little light on the process of
valuation. It supposes men to come to market with their minds
definitely made up regarding the prices they will pay. The demand
schedules it presents are purely imaginary and are used only as illustra-
tions. Everything that happens in the market—and that means sub-
stantially the whole content of economic theory—is supposed to be

Sea xsck

118 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

pre-determined in an almost mechanical way by such schedules. Nev-
ertheless a serious study of them has been no part of orthodox theory.
It is, however, a vital part of the study of economic behavior. We
all know that our wants are standardized by certain social habits, that
these habits present remarkable uniformities, and that they have a long
recorded history. Hence they can be investigated with excellent
prospects of success, as the widely different studies of Professors Veblen
and Henry L. Moore may prove to all doubters. But in this field
again the investigator must employ the aids which Wieser bans, psy-
chological analysis, historical research and statistical measurement.

Von Wieser’s greatest service is that by rounding out Austrian theory
he has shown the limitations of what can be accomplished along that
line. More emphatically than any criticism, his finished construction
calls for a fresh start. The task before us is to attack the problem of
economic behavior, equipped with the fullest knowledge and the most
powerful instruments of analysis which the day affords.

Wes .ey C, MITCHELL.

CoLuMBIA UNIVERSITY.

< r
ecsiemnnieencsapntesieseic ia sN aR baes

JOHN HAY!

declares that “ this is a personal biography and not a political

history,’’ the reason being, as he declares, that ‘‘ the time has
not yet come when it would be proper to give the names of all witnesses
and to cite by direct reference the official documents, as is required
in a. formal history.”’” The phrase ‘‘ official documents ’’ is, we may
assume, here intended to denote only documents that have not been
published and are not as yet accessible to the historical investigator,
since there could hardly be an objection to citing documents that have
been made public. But in spite of the limits thus ostensibly set, Mr.
Thayer has gone far beyond the revelation of personal traits, and has
made averments of an historical character which, because they either
exceed or are not in harmony with the public official record, can
scarcely be held exempt from the usual and reasonable requirement of
proof.

The statement, for example, that the “ allies,’’ Germany, Great
Britain and Italy, ‘‘ sent warships and established ”’ a pacific blockade
of Venezuelan ports on December 8, 1901 ; that ‘‘ during the following
year Secretary Hay tried to persuade the blockaders of the unwisdom
of their action ” and ‘‘ urged arbitration ;'’ that on December 8, 1902,
Germany deeming that “ her opportunity had now come,” “she and
Great Britain severed diplomatic relations with Venezuela, making it
plain that the next steps would be the bombardment of towns and the
occupation of territory,’’ and that “here came a test of the Monroe
Doctrine ’’—all these statements as to a series of public events, their
order, significance and treatment, it would seem to be entirely proper
to substantiate, since the version given is at variance with the authentic
official record published by the United States and by other governments
fourteen years ago.

The facts, as they appear of record, are that President Roosevelt,
in his annual message of December 3, 1901, defined the Monroe Doc-
trine as ‘‘ a declaration that there must be no territorial aggrandizement
by any non-American power at the expense of any American power on
American soil,’’ at the same time expressly affirming that the United

T order to define the limits of his task, Mr. Thayer at the outset

'The Life and Letters of. John Hay. By William Roscoe Thayer. Boston,
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1915.—Two volumes: x, 456; 448 pp.
119

120 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY __[Vot. XXXII

States did ‘‘ not guarantee any state against punishment if it miscon-
ducts itself, provided that punishment does not take the form of the
acquisition of territory by any non-American power ;” that on Decem-
ber 11, 1901, the German ambassador at Washington, in a promemoria
reviewing the German claims against Venezuela and. the latter’s refusal
to admit diplomatic interposition in the matter, stated that, if Venezuela
should persist in this refusal, the German government, after delivering
an ultimatum, would have to consider as a measure of coercion the
blockade of the more important Venezuelan ports and, if this did not
suffice, their ‘‘ temporary occupation ”’ and the ‘‘ levying of duties ’’
therein, but especially declared ‘‘ that under no circumstances do we
consider in our proceedings the acquisition or the permanent occupa-
tion of Venezuelan territory ;’’ that Mr. Hay, on December 16, 1901,
quoting in his note President Roosevelt’s definition of December 3,
replied that the President, ‘‘ appreciating the courtesy of the German
government in making him acquainted” with the situation, but ‘‘ not
regarding himself as called upon to enter into the consideration of the
claims in question,’’ believed that ‘‘no measures’’ would be taken
which were “ not in accordance with the well-known purpose ’’ of the
German Emperor, as set forth in the promemoria (for. Re/. 1901,
pages 192, 195) ; that no measure of coercion was taken till a year later,
when Germany, Great Britain and Italy instituted a blockade of certain
Venezuelan ports ; that Great Britain gave an assurance, similar to that
of Germany, regarding the permanent occupation of territory ; that the
powers concerned, long prior to any blockade, repeatedly asked for
arbitration ; that the blockade which was instituted only in December
1902, ended on February 14-15, 1903, after President Castro’s aban-
donment of his previously persistent refusal to arbitrate ; that, after the
severance of relations between the blockading powers and Venezuela,
the minister of the United States at Caracas, with the permission of his
government and the assent of Venezuela, took charge of British and
German interests in that country ; that the Permanent Court at The
Hague, in eventually deciding, in a suit to which the United States was
a party, that the blockading powers had acquired a right to preferential
payment of their claims, based its decision expressly upon the ground,
among others, that the non-blockading powers, including the United
States, had never, pending the employment of measures of coercion,
protested against the assertion by the blockaders of a right to special
securities ; and that the court, in the course of its decision, particularly
adverted to the fact that, prior to the blockade, the Venezuelan gov-
ernment ‘‘ categorically refused to submit its dispute with Germany and

a ann eat es

sie eerie

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No. 1] JOHN HAY 121

Great Britain to arbitration, which was proposed several times, and
especially by the note of the German government of July 16, 1901”’
(For. Rel. 1904, page 507).

Of the blockade and its ending, and of his own part in the transac-
tion, President Roosevelt gave, in a speech at Chicago, April 2, 1903,
the following account, which is in entire harmony with the record :

The concern of our government was of course not to interfere needlessly
in any quarrel so far as it did not touch our interests or our honor, and
not to take the attitude of protecting from coercion any power unless we
were willing to espouse the quarrel of that power, but to keep an attitude
of watchful vigilance and see that there was no infringement of the Monroe
Doctrine, no acquirement of territorial rights by a European power at the
expense of a weak sister republic—whether this acquisition might take the
shape of an outright and avowed seizure of territory or of the exercise of
control which would in effect be equivalent to such seizure.' . . . Both
powers assured us in explicit terms that there was not the slightest intention
on their part to violate the principles of the Monroe Doctrine, and this
assurance was kept with an honorable good faith which merits full ac-
knowledgment on our part. At the same time, the existence of hostilities
in a region so near our own borders was fraught with such possibilities of
danger in the future that it was obviously no less our duty to ourselves
than our duty to humanity to endeavor to put anend tothat. Accordingly,
by an offer of our good services in a spirit of frank friendliness to all the
parties concerned, a spirit in which they quickly and cordially responded,
we secured a resumption of peace—the contending parties agreeing that
the matters which they could not settle among themselves should be re-
ferred to The Hague Tribunal for settlement.’

It may further be pointed out that, pending the blockade, Mr. Hay,
on February 17, 1903, quoting President Roosevelt’s definition of the
Monroe doctrine in the annual message of December 3, 1901, expressly
declined to commit the United States to the Drago declaration ‘* that
the public debt cannot occasion armed intervention nor even the
actual occupation of the territory of American nations by a European
power.’’

These are facts of public record which cannot be effaced or altered.

No doubt the present work is entertaining. It is full of spirit and
vivacity, is light of touch, often suggests a dash of waywardness, and

1 President Roosevelt here read the interchanges with Germany and Great Britain,
above mentioned.

* Addresses and Presidential Messages of Theodore Roosevelt, 1902-1904, pp.
117-120.

*
a

122 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

is characterized by a strong play of personal feeling, indulged freely
and without restraint. Moreover, in spite of the neglect of ‘‘ official
documents,’’ the author may fairly claim to have done copious justice
to the tendency to mental effervescence which his interesting subject,
even when holding high official station, was wont to indulge, in familiar
conversation and in writings which, though strictly personal and con-
fidential, were ‘‘ racy and fresh with idiomatic graces.’’ But, whether
the measure thus given of the man is adequate, and whether it will
redound to Hay’s fame as a statesman to create the impression that
personal attachments and antipathies, extravagantly and often humor-
ously expressed in the privacy of intimate correspondence, really ani-
mated his policies and controlled his public conduct, are questions which
those who knew Hay and were attached to him may not be ready to answer
offhand in the affirmative. Transactions in which Germany was con-
cerned were not the only ones with which Hay dealt. The Hay-
Pauncefote treaty, relating to the inter-oceanic canal, is one in the
negotiation of which Germany was not concerned, and the attacks upon
it did not come distinctively from German and Irish sources. And
yet, how stands the matter upon the present page? The fact is well
known that the treaty encountered opposition in the Senate, where
it was materially amended. The questions involved were questions
concerning which men may legitimately differ; but, as an indication
of Hay’s attitude, we are furnished with a personal letter to our ambas-
sador in London, in which a “ curious state of things ’’ is said to exist
among the senatorial ‘‘ kickers,’’ of whom two are ‘* howling lunatics,’’
another is divorcing his wife, two are fighting for their re-election,
another has de/irtum tremens, another has broken his ribs, and an-
other has the grippe, while yet another has gone to New York on
‘« private business ’’ (II, 225-6). No wonder, such being his apparent
frame of mind, that Hay, according to another selected revelation,
should have fancied that the United States was ‘‘ compelled to refuse
the assistance of the greatest power in the world (Great Britain) , 7
carrying out our own policy, because all Irishmen are Democrats and
some Germans are fools’’ (II, 235). Nevertheless, the final verdict
rendered by Mr. Thayer reads thus: ‘* We can see, however, that
they [Hay’s ‘kickers,’ ‘ lunatics,’ inebriates etc.] were wiser than he.’’
In view of this adverse judgment, a serious exposition, somewhere, of
the terms of the treaty and of the principle on which it was founded,
would not have been out of place.

Nor are Hay’s unfavorable expressions here disclosed in regard to
foreign powers by any means confined to one power. Great Britain al-

oe

No. 1] JOHN HAY 123

most alone escapes. France “is Russia’s harlot—to her own grievous
damage ’’ (II, 234). A memorandum handed in by the Russian am-
bassador, “like everything from that country has a false bottom ’’
(II, 235). As asupposed revelation of the real thoughts and feelings
of one very recently entrusted with the conduct of American foreign
policy, these phrases, though not taken from “ official documents,”’
must be highly interesting, and may be highly illuminating to the gov-
ernments concerned. Perhaps no harm can now come to the United
States from the publication of the view that the American public was
“‘ idiotic ’’ in “‘ snivelling over” the ‘‘ bravery” of the Boers, or of the
hope that England would “make quick work of Uncle Paul,” even
though Mr. Thayer vouchsafes an intimation that the Boer’s “ baffling
resistance to enormously superior British forces was not properly
admired by the Secretary” (II, 221, 232, 231).

As to Hay’s policy regarding China, we are left in some doubt. In
one place, his quick assumption that the powers had agreed to what
they had not accepted is lauded as “one of the most adroit strokes of
modern diplomacy” (II, 243); but is later called “ a magnificent
bluff ’’ (II, 247). And it is admitted that neither the phrase “ open
door ’’ nor the principle it denotes originated in the United States.
There are indeed certain phases of Hay’s treatment of the Chinese
question that are perhaps more entitled to consideration, as affecting
his character and reputation, than the fragile assumption above mem-
tioned, the effect of which was not so pronounced or so durable as is
sometimes supposed.

As Hay received his appointment as ambassador to England and as
secretary of state from President McKinley, the latter necessarily
figures to some extent in the present work; but Mr. Thayer’s allusions
to him are uniformly depreciatory and unfavorable. Freely admitting,
as we must do, that McKinley, hailing from the new country called
Ohio, west of the Alleghanies, may never have accquired that “ Parisian
culture ’’ which a French journal declined in 1889 to accord to Buffalo |
Bill’s Indians, and that he may never have assumed, by reason of res-
idence in London, that air of superiority which enabled Henry James,
in alluding to the friendly throng that welcomed Hay at Southampton,
most intelligently and profoundly to inquire as to the impression made
upon his mind by “ these insects creeping about and saying things to
you,’’ we may still be unable to accept as satisfactory a characterization
of McKinley asa “politician’’ lacking “intellectual force,’’ who,
knowing the “ potency of words,’’ had the art of “throwing a moral
gloss over policies which were dubious, if not actually immoral,. . .

124 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (Vor. XXXII

with a sort of self-deceiving sincerity,’ and who exhibited in his con-
duct the showmanlike instincts of Barnum (II, 136-137, 139, 141).
Testing this judgment by the record, we venture little in saying that
the finest thing in the present volumes is McKinley’s letter of March
13, 1900, returning the resignation which Hay, hurt and weary, placed
in his hands when the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations reported
the canal treaty adversely. Generously assuming entire responsibility
for the treaty, and declaring that he would himself “cheerfully bear
whatever criticism or condemnation may come,’’ McKinley declared :
‘‘We must bear the atmosphere of the hour. . . . Conscious of high
purpose and honorable effort, we cannot yield our posts however the
storm may rage.’’ ‘This was not written for the public eye. It was
simply in keeping with what Hay had found to be McKinley’s general
attitude on foreign questions—a desire to do that which was best for
the country, “without regard to its effect upon himself’ and his
political fortunes (Hay to Choate, August 18, 1899, II, 219-220).

It seems hardly material, in discussing a life of John Hay, to notice
the author’s statement that the Republican national platform of 1896,
“thanks to the efforts of some eastern delegates, declared in favor of a
gold standard’’ (II, 149). In reality there is substantial testimony
that the committee on resolutions held that position by a majority of
38 to 13, while of the sub-committee to draft the platform all the
western members but one were in favor of a gold declaration.

Nor is McKinley alone in being the subject of depreciatory comment.
In spite of the fact that Hay is quoted as speaking of the Canadian
claim in the Alaskan boundary dispute as ‘‘ ridiculous and preposter-
ous’’ (II, 205), it is intimated that the selection as British arbitrator
of Lord Alverstone, who decided against the claim, ‘‘ may not have
been fortuitous ” (II, 208), and this is followed up with the statement
that the British government, being apprehensive as to what President
Roosevelt might do, chose “ Lord Alverstone, who, as it turned out,
supported the American claim” (II, 210-211). This insinuation is
not new, but it was denounced by Lord Alverstone as false when it first
appeared ; and this denunciation he afterwards repeated in his autobi-
ography, in which he affirms that he acted ‘‘ purely in a judicial capac-
ity ’’ and that he was influenced by nothing but a sense of duty to his
position (Recollections of Bar and Bench, pages 240-241). Lord
Alverstone obviously is entitled to the benefit of the fact that he made
this direct disclaimer.

After the advent of President Roosevelt, Hay is more than once
made to appear as succumbing to the more ‘‘ vigorous ’’ views of his

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No. 1] JOHN HAY 125

new chief ; and it is represented that, in the Alaskan boundary matter,
President Roosevelt thought his attitude ‘‘ indecisive, if not actually
timid” (II, 208). On this occasion no writing of Hay’s is cited, nor
indeed is any authority adduced. The case is the same with the state-
ment (page 286) that at a certain point in the Venezuelan matter,
‘¢ the direction of American policy passed from Secretary Hay to Presi-
dent Roosevelt.” If it be true that Hay was unequal to emergencies,
it is no part of his biographer’s duty to conceal the fact ; but, of state-
ments repeatedly implying that such a defect existed, one may justly
expect to find, especially in a ‘‘ personal’’ biography, some substan-
tiation.

While, to the pseudo-intelligent and superficial reader, the titillant
quality of much of the matter embraced in the present volumes may be
highly satisfying, it is probable that the eventual estimate of Hay as a
man and a statesman will be determined by readers of another type and
caliber. In the light of this probability, one can scarcely avoid the in-
quiry whether Hay would have regarded his ebullient private utterances as
an accurate reflex of his personality and capacity, and whether the stu-
dent of his career should so regard them. If he looked upon them as
the eventual public embodiment of his inner thoughts and feelings, then,
being himself a highly sensitive man, he may justly share the conse-
quences with those (sometimes very old friends) to whom he did not
seek to mitigate the sting, and, so far as his public conduct is con-
cerned, may stand or fall by the deliberate self-revelation of his own
foibles and limitations. The writer of the present review, although he
cannot claim to have had with Mr. Hay a long and close acquaintance,
happened to be thrown with him at certain junctures when he was
under much stress, as in the summer of 1900; and the impression
then formed of him, of his character, both public and personal, and of
what he did and tried to do, was more serious and more favorable than
the present account, in which some important transactions are scarcely
noticed, would justify.

J. B. Moore.

CoLuMBIA UNIVERSITY

REVIEWS

The Eighteenth Century in France. By CASIMIR STRYIENSKI.
New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916.—vi, 345 pp.

; | The French Revolution. By LOUIS MADELIN. New York, G.
| P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916.—xiii, 662 pp.

TH The publication of these two volumes in the atonal History of
it France, under the editorship of Funck-Brentano, following the delight-
ful book by Batiffol on Zhe Century of the Renaissance in France,
| completes just half of the series as thus far planned. Zhe Middle Ages,
| by the editor, Zhe Great Century (the seventeenth), by Boulenger,
and Zhe Empire, by Madelin, are still promised. The series is popular
in style and treatment, appealing to the reader who would be dismayed
by the long row of substantial volumes comprising the Histoire de
France of Professor Lavisse and his collaborators; yet the names of
the authors of the present series are an ample guarantee that scholar-
ship is not sacrificed to sensationalism. M. Stryienski has the rare
distinction, for a foreigner in France, of having produced in the volume
before us, his third work dealing with the history of the eighteenth
century to be crowned by the Académie des Sciences Morales et Poli-
tiques of the Institute of France ; while M. Madelin’s volume won the
further distinction of winning the Grand Prix Gobert, the ‘* blue-
ribbon ” prize in history, awarded in former years to his ‘* beloved and
gifted masters,’’ Albert Sorel and Albert Vandal.

The books under review are very different in scope. In less than
three hundred and fifty pages M. Stryienski treats the three quarters
of a century from the death of Louis XIV to the assembly of the States
General. His narrative is necessarily rapid, and the total effect pro-
duced is that of a succession of persons and events hurrying the doomed
monarchy to its end. M. Madelin, on the other hand, devotes almost
double the number of pages to the single decade from the meeting of
the Estates to the coup d’ état of Brumaire.

The books are of unequal merit, too. M. Stryienski, in spite of his
authority and accuracy, seems to have yielded to the temptation to
entertain us with trivial incidents of the court and pen pictures of in-
significant celebrities. Portrait after portrait follows in his gallery—
of Villeroi, the little king’s governor, of the Marquise de Prie, of the
126

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REVIEWS 127

poor Polish wife of Louis XV, of their innumerable daughters, of Belle-
Isle and Richelieu, of the Princess de Lamballe and the Nesle sisters,
and a dozen other courtly people of second- or third-rate importance
in the story. One gets the impression at times of reading the gossipy
memoirs of the eighteenth century. The pity of it is the waste of good
space that is needed for other things. The Bull Unigenitus, for ex-
ample, one of the most momentous publications of the eighteenth
century for the history of France, is barely mentioned (page 123) ; and
there 1s room in the midst of the long tale of Pompadour’s honors and
caprices only for a couple of pages on the great struggle between Jan-
senists and Ultramontanists, Parlement and clergy. We are left to
surmise how the popularity of Louis XV in 1744 was changed into
the seditious discontent of 1751; and the all-important treaties of
Versailles that reversed the Hapsburg-Bourbon relations of two cen-
turies are dismissed with a paragraph apiece (pages 174, 175).

This lack of just estimate and proportion seems to us a fault so
serious as to outweigh the many excellent points in M. Stryienski’s
work. And we have to regret all the more the culpable neglect of the
big questions of the eighteenth century when we get glimpses of the
author’s real grasp of these questions and his rare power of describing
their essential nature in the too few pages which he seems able to
spare from his chronicies of the court; for example, the couple of
pages (which ought to have been half a chapter at least) on the Parti-
tion of Poland (pages 202-204). The treatment of John Law is excel-
lent, and the despicable Dubois, while not ‘‘ whitewashed,’’ is handled
with a discriminating justice rare in works on this period. One
cannot avoid the suspicion, however, that the gifted author has been
frightened out of his serious scholarship by editorial demands for “ pop-
ularity.” In shunning the Scylla of professionalism, he has fallen in-
to the Charybdis of triviality. The book leaves a final impression of
thinness.

The translation by H. N. Dickinson is marred here and there by
ineptitudes. Assister 4 (page 216) is rendered ‘assist at;” ‘on
nom vole vers l’immortalité is ** your name takes flight toward im-
mortality,’’ Jean Farine (page 224) becomes ‘‘ John Barleycorn,’’
and his ‘‘ army,” consequently, a reminder of revels rather than
revolt. There are a number of misprints in dates, the Asienéo is
spoken of as a right which England ‘‘ obtained’’ by the treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, and Pompadour, who died in 1764, is men-
tioned as ‘‘ governing France and seeing foreign courts apply to her
for support and protection in 1771” (page 188).

128 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (VoL. XXXII

M. Madelin’s volume on the French Revolution is a remarkably
vivid, clear, and well-balanced portrayal of that ‘‘ most complex
phenomenon that ever existed.’’ The author has laid under con-
tribution a bewildering number of sources, primary and secondary
(as the bibliographies at the end of his chapters testify), and yet has
neither buried the reader under a mass of technical details nor wearied
him with long controversies. _M. Madelin’s own interpretation is clear,
his touch is sure, and the narrative moves on with accumulating inter-
est. It is no small task to invest the Thermidorian reaction and the
Directory with a vividness of significance equal to the grands jours of
1792. The author has profited, too, by the latest studies in the vol-
uminous pamphlet and periodical literature on the French Revolution.
In this respect his book truly surpasses any single-volume history of
the epoch that we know. It would be impossible to illustrate this ex-
cellent feature of the volume by specific examples, for they run through
it all from beginning to end ; but the reader is referred for a special
instance to the effect of the land transfers under the laws of the Con-
stituante and the Convention upon the society of the Year III, and
incidentally upon the advent of Napoleon to power.

M. Madelin follows his great master Sorel in the emphasis he puts
on the European aspect of the French Revolution. He shows us
clearly the effect on France of the preoccupation of Russia, Austria,
Prussia and England with the Netherlands and Poland, with the Black
Sea and the Baltic, in just the critical days of the great drama at Ver-
sailles and Paris. The ‘‘ miraculous event” at Valmy takes on quite
another aspect than it wears in the pages of Michelet and Mignet. M.
Madelin is himself a captain in active service in the French army, and
his large, sane patriotism is visible in every page of his book. He
is an enthusiastic son of the revolution, but he never contracts the
myopic vision of Marat or Robespierre, of Barras or Sieyés. Carnot is
his hero; Danton, still more: ‘‘ If we must shed more blood, let it be
that of the enemies of France.”

Although M. Madelin’s work is chiefly political, and his debt to M.
Aulard, gracefully acknowledged, is apparent throughout, there is
nevertheless as complete an analysis of the social and economic condi-
tions of France at the opening of the States General, at the height of
the Terror, and in the transitional Year III of the Republic as we could
expect in a single volume. Especially commendable, too, is the con-
vincing, cumulative narrative of the inevitable advent of Napoleon.

The style of M. Madelin’s book is lively and eloquent. At times
one is reminded of Lamartine, especially in the brilliant epigrammatic

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No. 1] REVIEWS 129

touches of prophecy or reminiscence. The character sketches of
Madame Roland, Danton, Robespierre, and the ‘‘ Five Majesties ’’ of
the Directory are gems ; and the descriptions of the fall of the Girond-
ists, the Paris ‘‘ Days” of June 20 and August ro, the dethronement
of the tyrant of Thermidor, the tragi-comedy of the Orangerie are in-
tensely vivid. In fact, the rapidity of the narrative at times runs away
with the author himself, and results in a bit of confusion for a reader
who has not M. Madelin’s wealth of material behind him. One is not
clear, for instance, of the exact movements of Damas’ dragoons in the
dramatic episode of the king’s flight towards Metz (pages 188, 189).

There are naturally points on which students of the French Revolu-
tion will take issue with M. Madelin. To say that ‘‘ the Constituent
Assembly had been overfull of ideas, the Convention seemed to have
none at all’’ (page 300), is certainly unfair to the great body which the
author himself on a later page (page 483) credits with a long list of
services to education, science, and social reform. Louis’ reason for
promulgating the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which he afterwards
resisted to his death, are not given. Many will think that the author has
reacted too sharply from the sentimentality of Lamartine and Dumas in
his treatment of the Girondist leaders, among whom he finds ‘‘ not a
single statesman ” (page 217).

But these are, after all, matters of judgment and proportion. An
error hard to understand in so thorough a scholar as M. Madelin is his
confusion on the organization and history of the great Committee of
Public Safety. He says (page 330) that the committee was organized
on March 25 (1793) as an ‘‘extreme measure”’ after the defeat of
Neerwinden ; that Robespierre was ‘‘ shortly ’’ to drive Danton from
his position on it (page 333) ; that there was a proposition on July 10 to
reduce the committee from sixteen to nine members (page 352) ; and
that ‘‘ the Ten ” divided the various departments of government amongst
them after October 1793 (page 355). Allof these statements are wrong.
What happened on March 25 was the session ‘‘en permanence ” of
the old Comité de Défense Générale ; the Committee of Public Safety
was not organized till April 6 (as Madelin, in fact, states on page 333) ;
Robespierre did not sit on the committee until July 24, which in the
rapid sequence of events in the summer of 1793 can hardly be called
‘*shortly ” after the first week of April—think of the events of May 31
and June 2! The committee consisted of only nine members until the
election of Carnot and Prieur of the Céte d’Or on August 14, Billaud
and Collot on September 6 ; and it never numbered “ten” in its his-
tory. In fact Madelin enumerates “we/ve members with their func-

130 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL.. XXXII

tions or “departments’’ in the same paragraph in which he speaks
of “the ten” (page 355). The history of its personnel is briefly as fol-
lows: To the eleven members of August 14 Collot and Billaud were
added, September 6. Thuriot (a Dantonist) withdrew in disgust Sep-
tember 20, leaving twelve members. Herault, the last of the Danto-
nists, was executed with his leader on April 5, 1794, and with the eleven
remaining members the committee was unchanged until its reorganiza-
tion after Robespierre’s fall (July 28, 1794).

The numerous minor errors in the book we find from comparison
with the original French are due mostly to the carelessness of the
translator. By rendering ds 5 (Octobre) au matin as “ by five
o’clock in the morning ’’ he hopelessly confuses the chronology of the
October march to Versailles (page 104) ; he translates the decree of
April 1791, gui rendra non rééligibles les Constituants sortants,
‘¢ whereby members of one Constituent Assembly were declared ineligi-
ble for the next,’’ thus turning the legislative into a constituent body
(page 123) ; rentrer dans /e siécle is translated (of priests) ‘‘ to return
to the century ’’’ (page 174) ; the ‘‘ Frenchman’s motto,’’ ‘‘ Conquer or
run!” has no point unless the play on the words vaincre ou mourir,
vaincre ou courir is noted (page 245) ; Robespierre makes a formal
demand ‘‘ in the Assembly” on July 29, 1792 (the French being aux
Jacobins), whereas he was excluded from membership in the Assembly
by the ‘‘ self-denying ordinance” which he himself proposed in the
closing days of the Constituante (page 261) ; ‘‘ Marat( !) was to throw
the deputies out of the windows” (Murat les fera passer par les fené-
tres) in Brumaire (page 344) ; Le Comité de Sireté Générale is unpar-
donably called ‘‘ the Committee of Public Safety” (page 415 )—e? ainsi
de suite! Of misprints, we note ‘‘ eighty-five” (for “ eight-three ’’)
departments, (page 126) ; “ Dom Guerle” for ‘‘Dom Gerle” (page
138); ‘‘Seiout” for ‘‘Sciout” (page 143); ‘ Cobenzel” for ‘‘Co-
benzl’’ (page 262) ; “ morning of June’ for ‘‘ morning of June first”
(page 341); ‘ Boissy D’Anglais”’ for “ Boissy d’Anglas” (page 416) ;
“ Monck”’ for “ Monk” (page 496), and several dates. As to dates,
finally, one wonders why M. Madelin has mixed the ordinary and the
revolutionary calendar together all the way through the book, often
using the two styles in the same paragraph or even the same sentence,
e.g., ‘On September 17, 1793 they were authorized to draw up lists
of those (suspects), and on 14 Frimaire of the Year II to apply....
the laws’ (page 359).

In spite, however, of the anonymous translator’s exasperating care-

lessness, the volume is a, joy to read.
D. S. Muzzey.

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No. 1] REVIEWS 131

The Life of Fohn Marshall. By ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE,
Boston and New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1916.—Two
volumes : xxvi, 506; xviii, 620 pp.

Impressed with the fact that a vague and shadowy austerity charac-
terizes and measures the general conception of John Marshall, Mr.
Beveridge has undertaken to give a full portrayal of the character,
career and human personality of the great Chief Justice. ‘* No man
in our history,’’ he says, ‘‘ was more intensely human than John Mar-
shall, and few had careers so full of movement and color.’’ This
statement is amply substantiated in a narrative which, beginning with
whatever is ascertainable concerning the origin and early days of its
subject, follows him step by step through his career as frontiersman,
soldier of the Revolution, and lawyer ; member of the Virginia legisla-
ture and council of state, and later of the Virginia convention on the
ratification of the Federal Constitution ; envoy to France ; member of
the national House of Representatives, and finally chief justice of
the United States.

John Marshall, as his present biographer observes, ‘‘ was never out
of the simple, crude environment of the near frontier for longer than
one brief space of a few months until his twentieth year.” For educa-
tion, he was in childhood dependent on such instruction as his parents
could give him. Books were few; but his father, apparently with a
view to make his eldest son, John, a lawyer, became one of the original
subscribers for the American edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries. At
one time Marshall was sent to a primitive ‘*‘ academy ’’ in Westmore-
land County kept by the Rev. Archibald Campbell, uncle of the poet
Campbell, but his attendance lasted only a few months. When the
Revolution broke, he immediately took up arms. He passed through
the terrible winter at Valley Forge, and remained in actual service till
1779, bearing his full share of hardships, battle and danger. In this
service, in providing for which the local authorities showed so deplor-
able an inefficiency, ‘‘ we find,’’ says Mr. Beveridge, ‘‘ the fountain-
head of John Marshall’s national thinking.”” When he formally
resigned his commission in the army in 1781, he had already been
admitted to the bar. As a preparation for the legal career he had
attended law lectures by George Wythe, at William and Mary College,
for a period of perhaps six weeks. Jefferson, his kinsman, and latet
his great political antagonist, signed, as governor of Virginia, his license
to practise law.

January 3, 1783, Marshall married, and settled in Richmond for the

132 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

practice of his profession. Mr. Beveridge presents the record of his
professional, domestic, and social life, so far as it can be gathered,
and it may be said that he has collected it with great care and min-
uteness. A vivid light is thrown upon the social and economic condi-
tions and the modes and manners of the times. In the midst of it all,
Marshall uniformly appears as the simple, unaffected, good-tempered,
well-balanced, self-reliant man who inspired confidence by the quality
of his performance rather than by the apparent assumption of authority
or of superiority. Probably his utter neglect of appearances and the
entire absence of an air of self-importance may to some extent account
for his failure to reach the masses more effectively than he did. But
by sheer ability he profoundly impressed himself upon courts and as-
semblies, and he powerfully contributed to the ratification of the
national Constitution by the Virginia convention. So clear, pronounced
and influential was his advocacy of the need of an efficient national
government that he became the leader of the Virginia Federalists.
To the measures of the administration of Washington he gave un-
yielding support that was of inestimable value in the first trying years
of national unification.

Of his mission to France, in conjunction with Charles Cotesworth
Pinckney and Elbridge Gerry, the biographer gives a full and com-
prehensive narration. The story has often been told, but perhaps
never better told. That it rekindles the embers of past political con-
troversies cannot be denied, nor will Mr. Beveridge’s comments upon
the course of Jefferson be accepted by the latter’s adherents without
reservation. But as to the patriotism and uprightness of Marshall’s
own conduct there can be no question.

Soon after his return from France, Marshall, after a lively campaign
and riotous polling, was elected a member of the national House of
Representatives, where he distinguished himself, especially by his
great defense of the action of President Adams in the extradition case
of Jonathan Robbins—a speech to which has often been ascribed his
appointment to the post of chief iustice. But, before he reached the
latter station, he held for a time the post of secretary of state of the
United States. His nomination to the bench was made on January
20, 1801. It is said to have been wholly unexpected ; and although
it was confirmed by the Senate without opposition, he continued to

discharge the functions of secretary of state till the close of John

Adams’s administration.
With Marshall’s appointment as chief justice, the present volumes
end ; but the author states it to be his purpose to write the final part

— a

No. 1] REVIEWS 133

as soon as the nature of the task permits. The preliminary part has
been done on an ample scale, and with a thoroughness of investigation
and clearness and power of exposition that merit the highest commen-
dation. At last we are justified in the expectation of possessing a
worthy biographical memorial of one of the greatest judicial magistrates
of all time.

J. B. Moore.

The Secret Memoirs of Count Tadasu Hayashi, G. C. V. O.
Edited by A. M. Pootey. New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons,

I915.—-V, 331 Pp-

The word ‘*secret”’ in the title of the present volume perhaps does
not require special comment, since any effect it may have in attracting
readers is not to be deprecated. Judging by the methods often em-
ployed to excite general interest, one might be justified in thinking
that what the public wishes is not so much to be informed as to be
scandalized. If therefore a seasoning of what Mr. Pooley calls
‘* pleasing ‘indiscretions ’’ may serve to induce the reader to receive,
even reluctantly, a little actual information, or, as a member of a rural
schoolboard once remarked, to “‘ get a little education into him,” not
only is no harm done but even some good may have been accomplished.

It seems that Count Hayashi intended to write a history of Japanese
diplomacy from 1871, when he first became connected with it, down
to his retirement from the Japanese foreign office on the fall of the
Saionji ministry in 1908, and that perhaps with a view to the perform-
ance of this task, he made notes or memoranda constituting what is
here spoken of as his ‘‘ diary,” although there is nothing to indicate that
he kept a systematic contemporaneous record such as is appropriately
denoted by that term. He apparently wrote certain chapters dealing
with the Anglo-Japanese alliance, which he negotiated and signed on
the part of Japan, and with his own career in the foreign office, and
blocked out chapters on the question of immigration in the United
States and certain other topics. He was also a contributor to the
columns of the Japanese press, and particularly to the /i7i Shimpo,
whose proprietor was his friend. The present volume is composed of
materials obtained from all these sources. Nothing seems to have
been farther from the Count’s thoughts than the desire or the intention
to keep any of these things secret farther than might be necessary to
avoid interference with their publication. His chief anxiety evidently
was to establish his claim to recognition as the real author of the alli-

134 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

ance with England, and, by way of further assurance, incidentally to
show that the Marquis Ito not only had no share in the origination of
that measure but was inclined to look for support in other directions.
Some of his disclosures as to the attitude held at that time by England
as well as by Japan toward Germany and toward the question of invit-
ing the latter to adhere to the treaty, derive an additional interest and
weight from the circumstance that the terms in which they were re-
corded were necessarily uninfluenced by the present armed conflict.
In the end it appears that Lord Lansdowne endeavored to postpone
even the notification to Germany of the conclusion of the alliance ;
and Count Hayashi afterwards heard that the desire for such postpone-
ment was due to ‘‘ some wish expressed by King Edward ’’ (page 194).
The effort was, however, too late, as Japan, acting upon a previous
understanding with Lord Lansdowne, had informally advised the Ger-
man minister at Tokio that the treaty had been signed.

Count Hayashi impressively remarks (page 204) that ‘‘ in interna-
tional relations faith is the most essential element ;’’ and it is possible
that his observation, on the same page, regarding the importance of
maintaining the confidence reposed in a country by “friendly’’ powers,
was not consciously intended to limit the application of that remark.
However this may be, the editor, Mr. Pooley, declares that it was
‘‘one of the ironies of fate’’ that the count, after making the alliance,
should have been ‘‘ the Foreign Minister who had to demonstrate to
the world how easily the pledges of maintaining the integrity and sov-
ereignty of China could be evaded, and what a vacuous shibboleth the
doctrine of the Open Door really was.’’ Mr. Pooley evidently speaks
with some feeling on this question. Moreover, he may have failed to
ponder the discrepancy which often exists between the ambitious high-
sounding phrases in which a policy or a measure is proclaimed, and
the action afterwards taken under the ordinary and inevitable human
limitations of time, space and interest.

In a chapter on the Russo-Japanese convention of 1907, Count
Hayashi remarks that, although the Japanese public is rather cool and
indeed almost indifferent toward foreign affairs, yet, when attention
is forced in that direction, the public at once ‘‘ seems to get intoxicated,
as though drunk with alcohol, and behaves as if it were not able to
discriminate.’’ Perhaps the Count, if appropriately interrogated,
would have admitted that such manifestations were not monopolized by

his countrymen.
J. B. Moore.

No. 1] REVIEWS 135

The Irish Orators. By CLAUDE G. BOWERs. Indianapolis,
The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1916.—528 pp.

The plan of Mr. Bowers’s book was well conceived and in the main
it has been carried out with success. It was to tell from an Irish stand-
point the story of the long struggle for constitutional, religious and eco-
nomic freedom in Ireland by weaving it into the biographies of Flood,
Grattan, Curran, Plunkett, Emmet, O’Connell, Meagher, O’Donovan
Rossa, Butt and Parnell. The history of Ireland from the days of George
II and the undertakers lends itself to treatment in this way much better
than that of any other English-speaking country. There was a contin-
uity in this struggle in Ireland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
that is not discernible in the struggle for democracy in England in these
two centuries. Moreover, much more was achieved by agitation in
Ireland from the reign of George II to the beginning of the war in 1914
than was achieved in England and Scotland ; and in these years also
Ireland produced more leaders who appealed to the popular imagina-
tion than were forthcoming in England from the reign of George II to
that of George V.

From his standpoint, Mr. Bowers had a mine of good material to
work, and he has worked it to good advantage. There is some exag-
geration in his pages, as for instance, when he writes of Parnell being
thrown “like a felon into the gloomy confines of Kilmainham prison.”
Parnell’s lot in Kilmainham was at its worst not very desperate. Mr.
John Howard Parnell writes this concerning his brother, in a book on
which Mr. Bowers has drawn quite largely :

Charley was driven quickly away in a cab, which was afterward joined by
an escort of mounted police, and arrived at Kilmainham Prison without
anyone being the wiser. He was treated at Kilmainham as a political pris-
oner, being given a well-furnished room, and allowed to smoke and get
his meals in from outside. He was able also to write and receive letters,
subject to their being inspected by the police authorities, and his fellow
suspects in the prison were allowed to dine with him. He was also allowed
to receive visitors, and a great many of his friends availed themselves ot
this opportunity. Another concession was his being allowed a few days
absence on parole in order to go over to Paris to his sister Theodosia (Mrs.
Thompson) whose son was at the point of death. Owing to the freedom
which he was allowed, Charley was as free to rule from Kilmainham as
Napoleon was from Elba.

There is, as has been said, some exaggeration in these biographical
studies. There is some effusive eulogy of Ireland’s popular leaders, and

POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

136 [VoL.. XXXII

much. reiterated and vigorous condemnation of men like Clare and
Castlereagh. But there is more restraint, and much more discrimination,
than usually characterizes books on Ireland written by Irish-Americans
or for Irish-American readers. Every student of Irish history will ap-
preciate Mr. Bowers’s sympathetic and enlightening study of Butt.

It is obvious at many places in Mr. Bowers’s book that his acquain-
tance with the literature of Irish political history is much greater than
with the political literature of England in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. Otherwise he would not have suggested that Peter Fin-
nerty’s name was saved from oblivion only by the fact that Curran was
his counsel when, in 1797, as editor of the Press, he was indicted for
libel in Dublin. Finnerty went to London at the end of his two years’
imprisonment. There he managed to get his name embalmed in the state
trials and the Journals of the House of Commons ; and people familiar
with English history cannot recall the Walcheren expedition of 1809
without at the same time recalling the name of Finnerty and his impris-
onment in Lincoln gaol for what was regarded as a libel of Castlereagh.

Again when Mr. Bowers is clearing O’Connell of the charge of being
a harsh landlord, he relies to some extent on the testimony of “ W. E.
Forster, an English writer,” apparently without recognizing in the W. E.
Forster of 1846, the Forster who was chief secretary for Ireland during
part of Gladstone’s administration of 1880-85. Familiarity with even
the parliamentary handbooks would have saved Mr. Bowers from writ-
ing of the Chiltern Hundreds as the Chiltern Guards ; and from permit-
ting some of his readers to believe that Gladstone in 1880 owed his
majority in the House of Commons to the Irish Nationalists under the
leadership of Parnell. At the general election in that year there were
returned 357 Liberals, 233 Conservatives and 62 Nationalists; so that
in forming his administration Gladstone was not in the least dependent
on the Nationalists for his majority in the House of Commons. These
lapses, however, do not greatly detract from the value of Mr. Bowers’s
The Irish Orators asa book on Ireland. What would add much to
its serviceability would be a sketch of the Ireland of the days of Flood
and also a sketch of the Ireland of the years of the great war. Two such
sketches—they need not be long—would make understood among Irish-
Americans the enormous success which has attended the century and a
half of Irish agitations which Mr. Bowers so well and so informingly
describes.

EDWARD PorrITT.
HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT.

=.

a

No. 1] REVIEWS 137

The Diplomatic Protection of Citizens Abroad. By EDWIN M.
BorcHARD. New York, The Banks Law Publishing Company,
1915.—xxxvii, 988 pp.

In Democracy in America, De Tocqueville has commented on the
aptitude of Americans for the study and profession of law. The French
observer had primarily in mind national law, but his remarks may be
applied, in the qualitative sense at any rate, to American achievement
in international law as well, as witness the work of Wheaton, Wharton
and Moore. Within the international field Dr. Borchard’s volume
stands forth as a notable contribution, of a rank with the best product
of American legal scholarship. Although the title may suggest a lim-
ited phase of state action, pretty much all points of international con-
tact, both in peace and war, are traversed in a strictly objective manner
through the medium of adjudged cases, of precedents from the diplo-
matic practice of states, especially of the United States, and of awards
of claims commissions and other arbitral bodies. ‘The work is pre-
sented as a systematic treatment based upon a thorough examination
of an amazing mass of material, as indicated in copious footnotes which
should prove invaluable to the special investigator. In a field so wide,
there are necessarily many places where the authorities are uncertain
guides, where the strict legalist is in conflict with the theorist. At the
very outset the author faces a divergence of view with respect to the
function of the state and the rights and duties involved in the diplo-
matic protection of its citizens. Here, as elsewhere, Dr. Borchard
reveals good critical ability and an admirable method by his avoidance
of abstract philosophy and the ‘‘ unwelcome natural-law flavor.’’ He
is concrete, with the lawyer’s respect for fact—for which reason he
often finds himself in agreement with Westlake, the most legalistic
among English authorities.

Having set forth the aim of international organization to be ‘‘ the
advancement and perfection of those rights which the modern develop-
ment of international law, by custom and treaty, has recognized as
inherent in the individual,’ and having found diplomatic protection
(which he considers to be the sanction for the right of international
intercourse) to be in conformity with this aim, Dr. Borchard proceeds
to discuss the status of aliens and the municipal and international re-
sponsibility of a state to protect them. Then follows an examination
of the various kinds of international claims with special attention given
to those arising out of contracts with foreign governments. Part ii
deals with the exercise, means and extent of diplomatic protection and

138 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

with the distribution of awards. Part iii indicates in detail the object
of protection—the person and property of citizens—and Part iv, the
limitations on diplomatic protection due to the status of the claimant
or the nature of the claim. On the whole, the analytical arrangement
followed by Dr. Borchard is logical, though it would be more natural
to discuss the ‘‘ object of protection’’ before its modus operandi.
‘* Distribution of awards,’’ too, would seem better to follow ‘‘ proof and
evidence of citizenship,’’ as establishing title to claim. Occasional
repetitions occur, sometimes within the limits of a few pages (e. g., on
pages 537 and 543 re British naturalization), and the discussion of
topics shows some overlapping, but nothing that may not easily be
eliminated on revision. An appendix, giving an extensive bibliography,
and a topical index make this excellent book still more serviceable.

The chief obstacle to a satisfactory prosecution of international
claims is the political character of diplomatic action. Some states
take a keen interest in the fortunes of their nationals and are prompt
to extend protection when invoked; others, from principle, follow
laissez faire. As it is today, too much is left to political expediency,
which in turn leads to inequalities in the measure of security accorded
investors of different nationalities in foreign fields. Dr. Borchard sug-
gests as a remedy that ‘‘ essentially legal claims ’’ be adjusted by an
international court, in which the individual claimant, not his govern-
ment, would be the party to bring suit against the debtor state, pre-
cedent for which may already be found in the convention creating an
international prize court. The advantages of such a tribunal are, in
the author’s opinion, apparent :

The creditor will thus be assured of a hearing, the debtor state will be
secured against the pressure of exorbitant claims accompanied by dis-
agreeable diplomatic coercion, the government of the claimant will avoid
what is always a potential germ of international difficulty and ill-will, with
the incidental expense of pressing a diplomatic claim, and the peace of the
world will be fostered by the removal of one great source of international
conflict.

Such a proposal appears more immediately practicable than projects for
an international supreme court of wider jurisdiction, especially since it
has been found possible at The Hague to put restrictions upon the use
of force in the recovery of contract debts. The court should follow as
the complement of the convention. Dr. Borchard, however, does not
indicate clearly what the principle governing such a tribunal is to be—
arbitration or ‘‘ judicial adjudication.’’ It would seem (page 443)

No. 1] REVIEWS 139

that he has both in mind. The one finds its exemplar in the perma-
nent court at The Hague (where, by the way, some five cases involving
pecuniary claims have been arbitrated) ; the other, in the draft con-
vention for a court of arbitral justice. Arbitration does not always
secure judicial settlement ; on occasion it may lend itself to compro-
mise or the arrangements of diplomacy. ‘The alternative principle,
however, applied by an international court, would in time create a
body of decisions as definite and unified as those of a national tribunal,
and thus, if successfully worked, would point the way to the realization
of what is at present the more utopian proposal for a supreme court of
the world.

No subject can have more vital interest for the United States than
that of diplomatic protection. Not only does the temporary situation
due to the war give it prominence, but even in normal times it must
always loom large as the chief motive for American diplomatic action.
All states are concerned in protecting their nationals abroad, but con-
ditions peculiar to the western world present to the United States
problems of its own—such (to mention but a few) as the Mexican
situation and its relation to the Monroe Doctrine, the Caribbean ‘‘ pro-
tectorates,’’ the restrictions upon European and Oriental immigration,
and the status of naturalized American citizens in their countries of
origin. When it is further taken into account how rapidly finance has
been internationalized and how assiduously American financiers will
soon be seeking out new fields of activity, the timely appeal of Dr.
Borchard’s book will become apparent. Everyone whose business or
professional outlook takes him beyond the national frontiers will find
in it a light unto his path, while to the student of international law it
will serve as a reminder that, in spite of mine and torpedo, his occupa-

tion is not yet wholly gone.
Henry F. Munro.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

Nationalism, War on Society. By Edward H. Krehbiel.
With an Introduction by NorMAN ANGELL. New York, The Mac-
millan Company, 1916.—xxxv, 276 pp.

Unfortunately, in America books on current problems are generally
written by clever journalists or tired public officials who aim merely to
arouse the reader’s interest, not to satisfy it. Hence the market is
flooded with superficial books that live but a day. This volume of
Professor Krehbiel marks a welcome departure, for on every page is
seen the sure touch of the trained historian to whom current problems

140 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

are the outcome of great historic forces and to whom their solution is
a matter of enlightened statesmanship, not of formulas or epigrams.
The book is written in the form of a syllabus, but so fully and compre-
hensively that it needs only a few articles of literary clothing to become
a most valuable treatise for the general reader.

Professor Krehbiel has scant sympathy with sentimental pacifists and
he describes himself as an ‘‘ inductive pacifist.” By this term he
means a person holding the view that actual conditions in our econo-
mic and cultural life inevitably tend to make war obsolete. Like
Norman Angell, he regards war as the sum of all stupidities. It could
be avoided, without injury to any nation, if people were only sufficiently
enlightened to see it; victory and defeat are only states of mind, illu-
sions, for the essential economic and cultural life of a nation can no
longer be destroyed by victorious armies. War’s only results, therefore,
are evil, the destruction of life and property, the dislocation of busi-
ness, heavy taxes for future as well as for present generations, increase
in the cost of living, the prevention of social legislation, and worst of
all, a heritage of hate and distrust for future generations.

The first half of the book is devoted to a study of nationalism in all
its phases, political, economic and social. It is the author’s opinion
that the spirit of nationalism is the fundamental cause of the present
war. Nationalism, in the opinion of the reviewer, has indeed many
sins to answer for, as it has often inspired men to do frightful things
ad majorem patriae gloriam, but it is, perhaps, too much to say that
it is primarily to blame for the European conflagration. Nationalism,
once recognized and established, has shown a marked tendency to be-
come pacific; almost immediately after the unification wars of the
nineteenth century, the masses of Europe turned to radicalism and
socialism, which are distinctly pacifist in spirit. However, a new force
made its appearance, economic imperialism, which gained control over
international relations to an extent hardly realized, and became most
disturbing to the peace of the world. Professor Krehbiel explains how
this modern imperialism, with its aggressive military policies, was the
outcome of an exaggerated nationalism that took possession of all the
great powers of Europe with dire results for humanity.

To develop this point more in detail—at the end of the nineteenth
century, there took place a new industriai revolution which in its effects
was almost as startling as the one a century before. Industrial progress
was enormously accelerated by the application of science to industry,
new inventions, better organization of business, and the opening of
new sources of exploitation in Asia and Africa. Europe had burst its

FE etn ear

No. 1] REVIEWS 141

old industrial bonds and there began an overflow not only of goods
but of capital to undeveloped lands. A new type of man came to
the fore, a super-cayitalist, who differed from his immediate predecessor,
the capitalist of the nineteenth century, as much as the latter did from
the old-time merchant. The activities of this super-capitalist were in
backward countries, rich in natural resources, where great profits were
to be made if only sufficient protection could be had to life and prop-
erty. Professor Krehbiel describes how concessions were wrung from
native rulers by the threat of force, and how commercial treaties, with
special privileges to groups of investors, were forced on Asiatic govern-
ments by the European powers, each acting in the interest of its invest-
ing nationals. Like the conguistadores of old, these concessionaires
carried the flag of their country with them ; before long the backward
regions were carved up into “spheres of influence,” protectorates and
colonies. The nations of Europe thus gave protection to life and
property there and guaranteed special privileges to those who had come
to exploit the natural resources of those regions. Inevitably, the rivalry
of the various groups of investors, each desiring exclusive rights of
exploitation and each backed by the military power of its government,
was bound to drag the nations into conflict.

If there was one thing which characterized this new expansion of
Europe, it was hostility to real nationalism. ‘The rising national spirit
in Persia, China, Egypt and India was ruthlessly crushed by European
arms at the behest of the concessionaires, who feared that strong native
governments might limit their activities. The middle and working
classes in every country, although patriotic, were nevertheless peace-
fully inclined. What had they to gain from war? They were one
another’s best customers and profited little if any from “ places in
the sun.’’ They could be roused, however, by the cry that their
fatherland was in danger. Hence, a propaganda of suspicion and hate
was begun which accomplished its deadly work only too well.

Not nationalism but the lack of it among some of the peoples in
Europe was another cause of the present conflict. The Austrian and
Ottoman empires, with their ruling and subject races, were constant
invitations to war. Sooner or later the various subject races would rise
in revolution, or appeal to their kinsmen in other lands to liberate them.
To the flouting of the national spirit by Germany was due in part the
entrance of France into the conflict. Had the people of Alsace-Lor-
raine been permitted in 1871 to decide their own destiny by a plebiscite,
there could have been no Alsace-Lorraine question, no matter what
the outcome of the popular vote. ‘The recent uprising in Ireland was

142 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (VoL. XXXII

due to the flouting by England for many centuries of the Irish national
spirit. Poland, torn in three, has yet lived on, in the hope that the
thieves who had despoiled her would some day fall out and she might
then recover her lost nationality. Imperialism, not genuine nation-
alism, is the devil that should be exorcised from the body politic.

It is the author’s contention that the nation is an outworn political
organism, as it no longer corresponds to the economic and cultural life
of the world. That life, he maintains, is international ; hence a new
political system, international in scope, will have to be devised, to suit
the new conditions. It is perfectly true that the entire world is now
an economic unit, but as yet only on the stock exchange—a most
dangerous place ; otherwise there still exists the widest economic di-
versity. Industrially, England, Germany and the United States are
fully in the twentieth century, but France and Italy are still in the
nineteenth and eastern Europe is in the early stages of the industrial
revolution ; much of Asia still lives in a medieval economy, and Africa
is almost primeval.

The second part of the book is devoted to the pacifist movement.
Every aspect of pacifism is treated fully, and in a most satisfactory
manner. The development of international law, particularly on its
humane side, and the institutions of warfare are described and dis-
cussed ; most valuable is a history of pacifism from ancient times to
the present. The peace conferences at The Hague and the various
peace projects are carefully and impartially analyzed with the object of
finding some practical plan of world federation. Professor Krehbiel
firmly believes that the international state lies in the logic of history
and that it will supersede the national state just as the latter superseded
feudalism. He is committed, however, not to any definite program,
but toa definite principle, namely, the limitation of national sover-
eignty ; this principle, he thinks, must be universally accepted if world
peace is ever tocome. The era of localized wars is past; when a
nation now takes the plunge into war, others are sure to follow. Con-
sequently there ought to be the restraining influence of a world organ-
zation to prevent any nation from fighting whenever it feels itself
sufficiently aggrieved. The terrible lessons of the present catastrophe
in Europe have only too well proved the soundness of the author’s con-
tention ; possibly some scheme incorporating this principle will be
devised at the peace conference of the nations.

Professor Krehbiel’s book is crammed full of ideas and facts. It
will prove a veritable gold mine to future writers on the subject.

J. SaLwyn ScHaPiRo.
THE COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YorRK.

No. 1] REVIEWS 143

Germany vs. Civilization: Notes on the Atrocious War. By
WILLIAM Roscor THAYER, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company,
1916.—vi, 238 pp.

In this volume the scholarly author of Zhe Life and Times of Cavour
writes less as an historian than as an analyst of human motives. His
facts are familiar to all who have been diligent in reading current news-
papers and magazines. Most of the seventeen references in the foot-
notes are to secondary works. Narrative is subordinated to argument
and characterization.

All of the argument is trenchant and much of it is cogent. But some
of it is far from satisfying. On certain important matters the author
contents himself with scoring points off the arguments of Germans as
stated in their most extravagant form, instead of analyzing the whole
situation and seeking the relative merits of conflicting contentions.
Thus, he introduces the question of England’s responsibility for the war
by saying: “Still more preposterous is the German insinuation that
England was the ringleader of the Allies in their plot to overthrow Ger-
many” (page 168). In answer he omits any references to England’s
diplomacy during the two preceding decades and states merely that
England’s army was small, that she waited until the invasion of Belgium
before declaring war, and that her preparations for sending troops across
the Channel were most inadequate (page 169). His phrasing of the
contention that Germany has promoted the social welfare of her people
is that “ Germany is, on the avowal of its own officials, the Earthly Par-
adise, dreamt of for ages and yearned for by sorely tried men and women
of all races, and now at last put into happy operation by the wizards of
Kultur” (page 193). In reply he enumerates the many races who
emigrate to the United States rather than to Germany, but fails to sug-
gest that the two countries differ in respect to the pressure of population
on subsistence. His only further proof is that Frenchmen are not happy
in Alsace and Lorraine and that the “ number of child suicides in Ger-
many far exceeds, fer capita, that in any other country.” ‘ The King-
dom of Heaven,” he says, “is peopled with children. Can it be that a
brief experience reveals to German children that Germany is not
heaven?”’ (page 195).

It is, however, not so much by argument as by an appraisal of the
essential characteristics of the German nature that the author explains
how the war began. ‘We can,” he says, “hardly lay too much stress
on the German self-conceit as an important element in bringing Ger-
many to the condition where she would embark exultingly in the atro-

SS

144 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

cious war’’ (page 56). ‘ This war sprang as naturally from the German
heart and will as a vulture springs from its nest” (page 104). In defi-
ance of Burke, the author indicts a whole nation. ‘German mendacity
bears witness to the insoluble barbaric residue in German nature”’
(page 170). ‘“ Low cunning—that is the twin of cruelty in the Prus-
sianized German nature” (page 164). ‘These attributes of the Ger-
mans facilitated the long-standing designs of the German Emperor,
“the Over-War-Lord” who “could be trusted to seize the occasion
which he had impatiently waited for during many years” (page 129).

Thus the Atrocious War began, and atrocious in history will be William
who began it.

As we imagine him watching his neighbors year after year and waiting
till he judged the moment ripe for smiting them, we have a vision of the
butcher who goes out every day to look over his cattle, and even hands
them wisps of hay to make them believe that he is peaceable and friendly ;
and then the morning comes when he hurries them off to the shambles.
Such is the réle played by a War-Lord, drunk with ambition for world-
dominion [page 133].

In the chapter on Belgium the author seems to take at face value all
the charges of cruelty that have been levied against the Germans by
their enemies. ‘ They compelled wives to look on while their husbands
were shot, before subjecting the women to outrage worse than death... .
These thorough Huns did not overlook priests. ... Hellish was their
conduct towards women—women?—towards females of any age....
Nor did horrors stop on the threshold of nunneries” (pages 143-145).
The evidence on which this description is based is not given in any
detail. ‘There is only a general reference to the Bryce Report and the
statements of Professor Bedier. For whatever acts were committed,
the German Emperor is assumed to be personally responsible.

Such acts link William of Hohenzollern in the same exorbitance of atroc-
ity with Nana Sahib of Cawnpore.

The War-Lord who permitted his army to inflict these horrors upon the
noncombatant civilians of entire provinces cannot be expected to forbid his
soldiers in the field to drive women and children before them to screen
them in the attack ; nor could he be so squeamish as to feel ashamed when
they fired upon ambulances, or shelled hospital ships [page 145].

The amazement with which Germans received the criticisms of their
methods of warfare is explained in part by the fact that “to a German
the ‘ psychology’ of every one else is a closed book.’”” What hampers

No. 1] REVIEWS 145

him in understanding other peoples is that ‘‘ between the German and
you and me, when he looks at us, there is the mirror, invisible to you
and me, in which he is doting over his own features.” And for this,
Kultur is held responsible—“ Kultur, so repulsively bloated, wearing its
ego on the outside, as the turtle wears its skeleton, till it becomes thick,
indurated, and at last, impenetrable’’ (pages 115-116). Contrasted
with Kultur is Culture, “‘ which looks beyond itself, sees the best wher-
ever it exists, recognizes the validity of different standards, and prac-
tises tolerance without in the least surrendering convictions.’’

It is but natural that the author, himself a distinguished scholar,
should take especial interest in the attitude of German scholars during
this important period of history. He tells us that among many mani-
festations of surprise evoked from the Germans by the attitude of
“civilized people” toward the German treatment of Belgium, “none
equaled the address issued early in October 1914, by the Ninety-three
Intellectuals.’’

As heralds of truth, these men, who had enjoyed a reputation as
pillars of German scholarship, spoke the words they were bidden to speak.

. . We shall search in vain for any counterpart to this manifesto, which
proved, as nothing else could prove, the complete subserviency of the
German university professors to the Kaiser and his Ring. The Govern-
ment cracked the whip, and the Ninety-three fell into line, clicked their
heels together, saluted, and repeated their formulas. Not in our genera-
tion will German scholarship recover its prestige after such an exhibition.
We were told that German scholars were impersonal, impartial, objective
seekers for truth. . . . When we turn back to the works which brought
these men distinction, we shall see the shadow of suspicion on every page ;
for we shall remember that the mind which produced them was of such a
nature—call it essentially unscientific or untruthful—that it adopted eagerly
the false statements of the address [pages 158-160].

Whatever our sympathies toward either of the contending belligerent
groups in Europe, Mr. Thayer has made it easy for us all to acquit our-
selves of being moved by partisan bias when we join in his lament that
writers of history are not objective and dispassionate in war-time.
Quite unwittingly he has inclined us—even those of us who, like the
reviewer, were signers of the Address to the Allies, conveying our warm
sympathy with their cause—to be somewhat more merciful toward those
German professors whose passion ran away with their impartiality and
scientific judgment. Our regret is that an American scholar of emi-
nence should fall a victim to the same forces of unreason.

THoMAS REED POWELL.

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146 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [Vot. XXXIT

The New Empire Partnership. By PERCY HURD and ARCHI-
BALD HurD. London, John Murray, 1915.—xvii, 322 pp.

For a quarter of a century Mr. Percy Hurd, as editor of the Cana-
dian Gazette (London), and as London correspondent of Zhe Montreal
Star, has been accepted in England as one of the foremost authorities
on Canadian questions and on the relations of Great Britain with
Canada and the other oversea dominions. For almost as long, Mr.
Archibald Hurd has been recognized as an authority on questions affect-
ing the navy and imperial defense. There is no indication which
author is responsible for each of the nine chapters in Zhe Mew Empire
Partnership, but success marks the collaboration ; and the book is of
special interest today, not only from the views and suggestions that are
advanced, but also because it is likely to be the forerunner of other
books dealing with the closer relations of Great Britain and the oversea
dominions due to the war, and with the inevitable post-bellum readjust-
ment of these relations on a permanent basis. The purpose of the
authors is to examine how far the war has carried the new partnership
of empire as regards defense and commerce, and to indicate the lines
of policy which flow most naturally from the experience now being
gained while Great Britain and the oversea dominions are working
together to meet a grave common peril.

In discussing the question of defense as it must be organized after
the war, the authors review the naval policy of New Zealand and Aus-
tralia as these were developed after 1909. These policies resulted in
the establishment of local navies, which were at the call of the imperial
government as soon as war began. The naval policies of the Liberal
and Conservative governments of Canada are also reviewed with con-
siderable detail. The policy of the Laurier government was a local navy
under the control at all times of the Dominion government; that of
the Conservative government was a contribution of $35,000,000 to
pay the cost of building and equipping three capital ships which were
to be added to the imperial navy. There wasa change of government
in 1911 that resulted in the Laurier plan being discarded by the new
administration. But the plan of the Conservative government failed
because the navy bill was rejected by the hold-over Liberal majority in
the Senate. Local navies, in accordance with the policies of New Zea-
land and Australia, and with the Laurier program of 1910, receive no
endorsement from the authors, who insist that the war has emphasized
once more the unity of the seas, and also the truth that if the seas are
to be commanded by the British there must be one imperial navy,

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representing one system of training and permanently under some form
of central control.

To support their views on the trade question the authors present in
tabular form the increases in trade between Great Britain and the
oversea dominions in the first year of the war, and insist that a com-
parison of Great Britain’s trade with other countries during this period
emphasizes the superlative value of empire trade in times of difficulty.
They are advocates of inter-imperial trade, based on preferences for
dominion imports into the United Kingdom similar to those existing
for British imports in the dominions in recent years, beginning with
the tariff enacted at Ottawa in 1897. They take satisfaction in the
fact that since the war began, the Treasury has sanctioned loans
to the oversea dominions, while sanction for the floating of foreign
loans has been withheld.

For the first time in our generation the vital principle of the family before
the foreigner was accepted by the British Treasury. . . . Under the pres-
sure of war conditions we reverted in fact to the financial paternalism which
marked the internal relations of the Empire in the days before the domin-
ions held their own purse strings, before self-government had ended their
direct dependence upon the credit of the home government. . . . Fighting
together for a common end we are also learning to trade together. Effec-
tive co-operation in defense carries with it co-operation in commerce.

What direction it is hoped this new co-operation will take as soon
as the war is at anend is suggested by a remark on an earlier page.
There the authors recall the tariff controversy in Great Britain which
was begun by Chamberlain in 1903 ; and with evident regret record the
fact that the preponderating party in the United Kingdom—the Liberal
free traders and the Conservative free traders—believed it would be the
beginning of the end of the British Empire if England adopted in trade
the maxim that ‘‘ charity begins at home, and that the family is more
than the foreigner.” ‘* But,’’ they note with evident satisfaction,
‘* war breaks down many of the maxims of peace, and before our armies
had actually taken the field an Empire preference was established in
British trade as well as in British finance.’’

Apart from its value as a contribution to the current discussion of
the relations of Great Britain with the oversea dominions at the end of
the war, Zhe New Empire Partnership is noteworthy for another rea-
son. It embodies a good survey of the relations that had developed
from 1840 to the beginning of the war, between Great Britain and
her oversea dominions. There are several histories of the granting of

148 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [Vot. XXXII

representative and responsible government to the dominions, but there
has long been wanting a book from which could be learned exactly
what were the relations between Great Britain and Canada, Australia,
New Zealand and the Union of South Africa in the year the war began,
as regards such matters as tariff preferences, imperial defense, and
diplomacy so far as it affected the right of the dominions to make their
own commercial treaties. These relations and their origin are well

described in Zhe New Empire Partnership.

EDWARD PorRRITT.
HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT,

The Men of the Old Stone Age, their Environment, Life and Art.
By Henry Fairfield Osborn. New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons,
1915.—Xxvi, 544 Pp.

The term ‘‘ pfehistoric”’ has changed its meaning in the twentieth
century, and indeed as a technical term has well-nigh lost any meaning
at all. Archeologists working over the remains of the classical cul-
tures of the Mediterranean have pushed back the confines of knowl-
edge, to fill in the outlines of that dim past which Niebuhr and
Schliemann indicated when there was little to fall back upon but a
critical sense and a creative imagination. Babylonian and Egyptian
archeology have given us real history for many centuries of what was
prehistoric from the days of Herodotus to ours. Pit dwellings and
lake- or bog-villages in central Europe and Britain have revealed the
character of that northern world of which the classical authors knew
so little. So the scope of ancient history is no longer bounded by the
literary sources of the antique writers. It now depends almost more
upon the chance remains to be found by the spade than upon the
familiar texts—at least as those texts were formerly expounded. But
if history has ceased to be confined by the literate sources in the
classical and oriental fields, it has also begun, as it were, at the begin-
ning, and taken up the task of deciphering the origins, not simply of
nations known to the ancients, but of the earliest human life of which
any traces remain. The old stone age is prehistoric if anything is;
but the story of what happened in those far-off millennia is being pieced
together today so that we can at least follow its broader outlines almost
as definitely as those of certain aspects of antique history.

Professor Osborn’s book is an attempt to present this new knowledge
to the reading public. It is not a book of speculative theories or in-
terpretations for specialists, although the story is of interest to them ;
but both by the quality of the text, and by the sumptuous series of

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No. 1] REVIEWS 149

illustrations—of which there are about 270—the general reader of the
more intelligent sort is to be lured into these unfamiliar fields. Un-
fortunately, the preparation of a text to accomplish such ends is of
extreme difficulty, for the terms which must be used to characterize
the different ages are entirely unfamiliar. The Rome, Athens, Bab-
ylon, Thebes and Memphis of the paleolithic period are places like
Mas d’Azil, near the Pyrenees, La Madeleine, in the region of the
Dordogne, Solutré in central France, and Le Moustier again in the
Dordogne. These centers of the old stone life give their names to the
ages in which the type of culture flourished which is particularly char-
acteristic of the remains found there ; so that one speaks of the Azilian
culture as one might speak of Roman, Magdalenian like Athenian, and
similarly Solutrian, Mousterian and several others. The terms are not
the product of a wilful obscuring of plain facts, as sometimes happens
in the learned world, but they open up eras so new as to demand a
preliminary study of old stone geography. There should, therefore,
be no discussion of varying theories as to the justification of these
names or of their time-boundaries in the opening chapters of a book
which deals with such a difficult subject. Such scholarly discussions
should go intoappendices. Norshould there be too much detail which
went merely to establish the facts, when they were developing out of
postulates. Such matter should go into footnotes. Professor Osborn
has avoided footnotes and attempted to handle the whole matter in the
body of his text. The result is that although one can see evidences of
much painstaking effort to compel the text to be intelligible, it is
clogged, of necessity, and is therefore hard to follow, unless one is
already oriented in the subject. The illustrations, of which some are,
as the title-page states, by the Upper Paleolithic artists themselves,
others by the author’s colleagues, go a long way to add to the human
interest of the story. The busts which have been modeled with such
care by Professor McGregor furnish especially notable illustrations.
The maps, particularly those dealing with the geological problems, and
the handy tables of chronological arrangement or cultural succession
make the book quite self-sufficing. One need not turn to a small
library of works of reference, as is often the case in such works; the
author has included all necessary apparatus to cover the field.

The character of the book has led to a review of its form rather than
of its contents. In the main the theories followed are the less extreme,
but upon one essential point there is a positive statement which chal-
lenges attention. The treatment of the Upper Paleolithic man begins
with this assertion: ‘‘ In the whole racial history of Western Europe

150 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (VoL. XXXII

there has never occurred so profound a change as that involving the
disappearance of the Neanderthal race and the appearance of the
Cré-Magnon race” (page 260). This cataclysmic history, which re-
placed ‘‘ a race lower than any existing human type by one which ranks
high among the existing types in capacity and intelligence,” needs
more evidence than the prehistoric world can well supply. The fate
of the Neanderthals is still uncertain and the type of the Grimaldi
skulls may yet be found elsewhere. At present the most striking fact
in the Upper Paleolithic prehistory is admittedly the emergence of this
Cré-Magnon ‘‘ race,’’ but the student of the later history of mankind
is inclined to doubt even the most direct evidence of complete racial
extermination. The Saxons certainly were long credited with the
most thoroughgoing example of Schrecklichkeit in history , but we know
now that the Celtic blood has added its humors to the English consti-
tution. History never repeats itself; it would be doubly strange if it
were to repeat prehistory. But there is a strange appeal to the imagi-
nation in the implication of Commont that the new Aurignacian cul-
ture of this gifted race retouched the primitive tools of the western
peoples whom they replaced—in the valley of the Somme! Perhaps
the implications lead to a sustained doubt in the prehistoric Armageddon.
J. T. SHOTWELL.

Concerning Fustice. By LuciLius A. EMERY. New Haven,
Yale University Press, 1914.—170 pp.

In Charleston, South Carolina, stands a statue of Calhoun, bearing
this inscription: ‘‘ Truth, Justice and the Constitution.’’ These are
good words, words that doubtless the General Court of Massachusetts
would not hesitate to write underneath a figure of Webster on Bos-
ton Common. It seems a pity that the use of such good words should
ever lead to confusion. And more’s the pity that any one should write
a book about these words to make confusion worse confounded. This,
unfortunately, is what the former Chief Justice of the State of Maine
has done. Yet his book is not wholly in vain, for its confusion drives
home the folly of using tools of expression that are devoid of precision.

This, however, is not Judge Emery’s purpose in writing, for he places
great reliance on truth and justice. Truth, he says, is uncompromis-
ing, unadaptable and single.

It is not a matter of convention among men, is not established even by
their unanimous assent, and it does not change with changes of opinion.

No. 1] REVIEWS I5I

It is identical throughout time and space. . . . If the truth be found it will
be a sure guide in life. If it be not found the lives of men will so far go
awry. That it may be difficult to find, that we may never be sure we have
found it, makes no difference [pages 6-7].

And likewise of justice. Justice is not ‘‘ as Falstaff said of honor
. ‘a word,’ ‘a mere scutcheon’.”

I appeal to our consciousness, to our innate conviction that there does exist
something, some virtue, some sentiment, however undefinable in terms,
holding men together in society despite their natural selfishness, and with-
out which they would fall apart. It is this virtue, this ligament of society,
that we call justice [page 11].

Judge Emery refers to the saying of Socrates, ‘‘ I know not what justice
is and therefore am not likely to know whether or not it is a virtue,”’
and adds: ‘‘ Granting that the confession may have been intended
ironically, the further discussion did not result in any practical solu-
tion. . . . Indeed, the inquiry is not yet closed and will not be until
the millennium ’’ (page 15). Grievous mistakes will be made in the
future as they have been made in the past as to what is justice. Such
mistakes ‘‘ can be lessened only by greater wisdom and forethought, by
greater effort to consider justice apart by itself, with philosophical de-
tachment, with minds unclouded by pity, sympathy, charity, and other
like virtues, on the one hand, or by envy, hate, prejudice, and like
evil sentiments, on the other’’ (page 13). This spirit of detachment
characterizes Judge Emery’s treatment of his subject. Justice is ren-
dering each man his rights. Rights do not differ in their nature and
importance.

All rights are personal rights, and the right of each to control his labor,
his savings, his person, and his property isthe same. Iam not yet con-
vinced that the right of the laborer to make use of his labor is superior to
that of the capitalist to make use of his capital ; that, whatever his greater
need, the right of one without property is superior to that of one who has
property ; that the right to get is superior to the right to save [page 75].

After these indications of the author’s general philosophic outlook,
the reader would expect him to embrace the doctrine that all rights are
natural and inherent. Judge Emery plays sympathetically with the
notion, but does not expressly declare himself. In support of ‘* the
innate feeling and a general belief that society abridges individual rights
instead of conferring them” he cites the fact that legislation is usually

152 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL.. XXXII

restrictive or compulsory and rarely, if ever, permissive (page 40).
He concludes this part of his discussion by asking, ‘‘ How far should
society go in undertaking to regulate the conduct and restrict the
freedom of the individual—that freedom which would be his if he were
alone in the world?’’ What this state of happy freedom includes,
Judge Emery does not specify. Manifestly it does not include freedom
to take property by will or by descent, or freedom to enjoy an exclu-
sive franchise. It does not include freedom to sue in courts for redress
of injuries to one’s person or possessions. A cursory analysis of our
legal system and a comparison of its results with an assumed state of
nature will reveal that what from the angle of incidence is the imposi-
tion of legal burdens is from the angle of enjoyment the grant of legal
privileges.

Having dealt thus with truth and justice, Judge Emery turns to the
Constitution. With some surprise we find that ‘‘ justice can be secured
only through governmental action.’’ This descent to the mundane
leaves us curious how the human beings who determine the course of
governmental action are to go about it with philosophical detachment
to consider justice ‘‘ apart by itself.” We are curious also whether
judges and legislators who share the author’s belief that rights do not
differ in their nature and importance will seek to apply justice to the
actual conditions of life by some mathematical formula without exam-
ining those conditions. Judge Emery does not clear up the mystery.
His chapter on ‘‘ The Best Form of Government” indicates that the
separation of governmental powers has something to do with it. It is
vaguely manifest that only in the United States is justice going to sur-
vive. And this is because of the Constitution. The author’s concluding
chapters can be understood if read by title only: ‘‘ The Necessity of
Constitutional Limitations upon the Powers of the Government; The
Interpretation and Enforcement of Constitutional Limitations Neces-
sarily a Function of the Judiciary ; An Independent and Impartial Ju-
diciary Essential for Justice ; The Necessity of Maintaining Undimin-
ished the Constitutional Limitations and the Power of the Courts to
Enforce Them.”’

What comment is necessary on such a book as this, other than an
expression of amazement that leave to print should have been granted
by the official press of a university of learning? It would have been
so much simpler and wiser to leave the task where Socrates laid it down.
THOMAS REED POWELL.

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REVIEWS 153

Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical
Tendencies of Modern Democracy. By Ropert MICHELS. New
York, Hearst’s International Library Company, 1915.—ix, 416 pp.

This volume is an elaborate defence of the thesis that

the majority of human beings, in a condition of eternal tutelage, are
predestined by tragic necessity to submit to the dominion of a small mi-
nority and must be content to constitute the pedestal of an oligarchy. . . .
History seems to teach us that no popular movement, however energetic
and vigorous, is capable of producing profound and permanent changes in
the social organism of the civilized world. The preponderant elements of
the movement, the men who lead and nourish it, end by undergoing a
gradual detachment from the masses, and are attracted within the orbit of
the ‘‘ political class.’’

In other words, no matter how wide the suffrage, how numerous the
elections, how democratic the forms of party organization, how ‘‘ di-
rect’’ the primaries, a few will always lead and dominate, the many
will follow and be dominated.

In all this, there is little new to those who know their Aristotle, their
Ostrogorski, or their assembly district leader. Acknowledgment of
the general truth of the proposition is to be found in the old axiom
about eternal vigilance being the price of liberty. Michels simply writes
a new chapter to an old story. He has gone somewhat more into
the psychology of parties than have most American writers on parties,
and he has added to Bryce, Le Bon, Ostrogorski, Mosca and Pareto
an immense amount of detail drawn from the political experience of
French, German, and Italian socialists. It is the systematic treatment
and the wealth of illustration from European experience which make
the work of special value to students of American politics. It is indeed
more of a philosophy of politics than a description of mere political
machinery.

Michels’ point of departure is the necessity for leadership in modern
industrial democracy. ‘There is a tendency toward oligarchy in all
political organization, but as modern parties must inevitably pass judg-
ment upon highly complicated problems of legislation and manage-
ment, technical information becomes absolutely essential to effective
action, and consequently direction must fall into the hands of the few
possessing the requisite expert knowledge. In recognition of this fact
the socialistic parties have founded schools for the education of their
officers and workers. No one can speak with authority on social in-

154 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL.. XXXII

surance, for example, without having made a special study of the
literature on the subject and the practice of advanced countries.

The technical specialization that inevitably results from all extensive
organization renders necessary what is called expert leadership. Conse-
quently the power of determination comes to be considered one of the
specific attributes of leadership and is generally withdrawn from the masses
to be concentrated in the hands of the leaders alone. . . . The more ex-
tended and the more ramified the official apparatus of the organization,
the greater the number of its members, the fuller its treasury, and the more
widely circulated its press, the less efficient becomes the direct control ex-
ercised by the rank and file.

‘Then there are the less obvious psychological elements, such as real
incompetence of the masses for direct government in highly technical
matters, their love of dramatic spokesmen, their veneration for heroes.
When once the tribal gods are established it is almost impossible to
overthrow them. They point to their services and their sacrifices.
The masses are thankful for past favors and ready to rend those who
attack their own chosen.

Leaders, particularly among the socialistic parties, usually start out
by making sacrifices for the cause. They are workingmen who have
been blacklisted for carrying on propaganda or they are bourgeois who
have left their class to champion the rights of the fourth estate. As
the parties grow older, they fall into the hands of the older men who
naturally become more conservative with advancing years. The leaders
soon have a vested interest in their Parliamentary careers or in their
positions as party organizers, officers and editors, to say nothing of
the party property. In 1913 the central treasury of the German
socialist trade unions owned property worth more than $22,000,000 ;
hundreds of leaders, big and little, held paid jobs; and socialist inn-
keepers depended upon socialist trade for their livelihood. Thus the
party machine and its property becomes a vested interest enlisted on
the side of the established order.

The sifting process which tends to concentrate the -party leadership
in the hands of an oligarchy is accelerated by other influences in the
socialist groups. Only the veterans survive. The men of science who
are drawn to the party through their idealistic natures or their indif-
ference to large pecuniary rewards do not often like the hot and dusty
battles of the political forum. The young men of genuine ability who
are swept into the socialist movement by their impetuous natures, dur-
ing youthful days before avarice becomes the dominant motive, are

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No. 1] REVIEWS 155

constantly drawn off, as they grow older, by attractive opportunities
within the conservative circles. They grow disgusted with the pro-
letariat or they are found to be useful to the superior classes and they
are given lucrative positions in public or private life. Thus the circle
of the faithful is narrowed. The few who remain true to the end are
all the more endeared to the masses on account of their tested loyalty.
Their leadership is all the more secure.

Although Michels believes that a wider popular education will in-
crease the capacity of the masses for exercising control over their
leader, his outlook is rather pessimistic :

The democratic currents of history resemble successive waves. .. . When
democracies have gained a certain stage of development they undergo a
gradual transformation, adopting the aristocratic spirit and in many cases
also the aristocratic forms against which at the outset they struggled so
fiercely. Now new accusers arise to denounce the traitors ; after an era of
glorious combats and of inglorious power, they end by fusing with the old
dominant class ; whereupon once more they are in turn attacked by fresh
opponents who appeal in the name of democracy.

From this point of view, al] the conservatives have to do is to regard
the radicals with calm indifference and to buy the powerful among
them with ribbons, titles, honors, nominations, benefices, positions—
and money. ‘Thus the materialist interpretation of history becomes
the instrument of its enemies—the idealists of the sta/us guo ; and by a
strange turn of fortune Marx becomes the servant of the Hohenzollerns.
This is no place to argue with Dr. Michels. Moreover pessimism is a
matter of temperament, not of philosophy. He has told more truth
than most of us can endure and his volume will prove to be stimulating
to all students of democratic institutions.
C. A. BEARD.

Principles of Labor Legislation. By JOHN R. COMMONS and
Joun B. AnpREws. New York, Harper and Brothers, 1916.—
524 pp.

The aim of the authors of this book has been to reduce the vast
complexity of details of statutes, administrative orders and court deci-
sions to systematic statement, and to subordinate them to the test of
principle. Purposely, underlying principles are given place of first
importance. The science of legislation is kept boldly in the fore-
ground.

156 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

Introductory to the topics specially considered, the authors have
elaborated their statement of principles. These center around the
changing meaning of contract as applied to employer and employee ;
of property and property right as embodied in labor; the growing
recognition of the social basis of rights ; the effect of modern industrial
conditions on interpretation of due process of law and the police power
of the state. Following the discussion of these points, the reader is
asked to accept the conclusions as basal to all further analysis. The
consequences of this interpretation shape the principles. The readers
who carefully analyze the first chapter will have the basis for under-
standing the remaining pages, but the chapter must be studied and
not merely read.

The book covers the field very comprehensively, as the several
chapter headings will show : individual bargaining ; collective bargain-
ing; minimum wage; hours of labor; unemployment; safety and
health ; social insurance, including industrial-accident, health, old-age
and invalidity, widows’ and orphans’, and unemployment insurance.
The final chapter deals with administration. Under each appropriate
topic is arranged the abundant material, historical and current, that
the book presents.

There is an underlying unity in the conclusions presented under the
several topics. Space does not permit of the presentation of all of
them here. The fundamental one is not new though the emphasis is
significant. It relates to collective bargaining. The reader is led to
see that ‘‘ from the point of view of practical results . . . the law
today seriously restricts labor in its collective action, while it does not
interfere with the parallel weapons of the employers’’ (page 115).
Moreover, the parallel] between combinations for collective bargaining
and combinations to control prices is a false one. ‘‘ The public suffers
from high prices, it benefits from high wages ” (page 116).

Having justified the maintenance of collective bargaining as a factor
in the promotion of the public good, the principle is logically carried
forward. Minimum-wage legislation becomes a part of the broader
program. ‘Those unable to raise their own wages must be assisted to
some degree of equality of bargaining power. In accomplishing this
the state takes the initiative by establishing a standard below which
wages may not fall.

The wider field of social insurance is brought within the same anal-
ysis. Extending by simple logic the same tests and applying them to
actual conditions, the broad policies of social insurance are indorsed.
The transition from the one to the other is easy and unbroken. Even

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No. 1] REVIEWS 157

when a laborer has secured a job under wage and hour conditions that
are temporarily acceptable, ‘‘ his economic position is still precarious ’’
(page 354). Exceptional economic risks stare him in the face. He
and those dependent upon him must meet accident, illness, invalidity,
premature old age, normal old age, premature death, unemployment.
To meet these risks the well-known and beneficial practice of insurance
is of peculiar necessity. It must be of legislative origin, marking ‘‘ the
development of a settled policy on the part of society to provide pro-
tection for one group in the community which either is in greatest need
of the protection or which on account of insufficient income or fore-
thought fails to buy such protection through private commercial chan-
nels” (page 355).

For all the various forms of social insurance, justification is found in
the changing industrial conditions of laborers, in the growing economic
dependence of many and in the extreme social importance of establish-
ing as a matter of public policy a greater degree of economic freedom
for all the workers. As the work moves on toward the unaccomplished
stages of the program, the method of treatment necessarily varies. For
example, we already have a large body of compensation legislation ;
we have almost nothing in regard to health insurance. In connection
with all there is the same rigid test of principle and the same willing-
ness to stand by the results of the test.

The last chapter, fifty pages in length, deals with administration.
It is in some respects the most important part of the book. As the
first chapter defines the principles, the last offers a method for their
scientific application. Administration is made to loom large in the
general scheme of labor legislation. It is more than ‘‘ mechanism.’’
It is a ‘* method of legislation.” It is ‘‘ legislation in action.’’ It
rests upon investigation (page 415). At present, investigations are
made by each department of government separately, partially and in-
efficiently. Reasonableness in application and in interpretation can
be secured only by ascertaining all the facts and giving them due
weight. These investigating activities, so necessary to the proper ad-
ministration of labor laws in particular, are products of necessity, and
there is emerging, to meet the need, a fourth department of govern-
ment, the administrative, uniting the investigating activities of all of
the other departments. The further recognition of this government
activity is urged through the extension more generally of industrial
commissions, to whom shall be officially assigned the duty of investigat-
ing conditions, and adapting to known conditions the legislative policies
or principles of legislation enacted by legislatures and sanctioned by
courts.

158 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (VoL. XXXII

The book, then, is not alone an exposition of the principles of labor
legislation. It is an argument for a more consistent and a more per-
sistent application of the principles. The argument is the more con-
clusive because of its lack of the argumentative form. Facts are
abundantly distributed. Experiences from world-wide sources are
brought together. These, simply and authoritatively stated, lead the
reader so easily and naturally that it is scarcely necessary to formulate
a conclusion to the argument. This makes the book a propagandist
work of the highest type, though nowhere does it profess to be such.

The work is complete to January 1916, and carries with it a plan for
keeping the information up to date. The American Labor Legislation
Review will publish its annual review of labor legislation in an order
conforming with the table of contents of the book, thus enabling the
user to revise the material year by year.

No more timely and important book has appeared on this general
subject. Principles and application, the scientific and the practical,
find almost ideal proportion of emphasis. Harper’s Citizens’ Series,
to which it is an introduction, has set a high standard.

GEORGE G,. GROAT.
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT.

Industrial Law. By FRANK TILLYARD. London, Adam and
Charles Black, Limited, 1916.—xx, 626 pp.

The extent to which the labor of men, women, young persons and
children in England is now beneficently safeguarded by law—nearly all
of it statute law—may be judged from the fact that in these lectures at
Birmingham University on English Industrial Law, Mr. Tillyard is con-
cerned with no fewer than ninety-three statutes. The earliest of them
is the Statute of Frauds of 1678, and the most recently enacted statute
of which Mr. Tillyard treats is the Munitions-of-War Act, which was
passed by Parliamentin 1915. The best description that can be applied
to Mr, Tillyard’s book—text 334 pages, appendices 272 pages, and
index 26 pages—is that it is an encyclopedia of English industrial laws,
covering their history as well as their actual working, and particularly
detailed and valuable as regards their working. It must not be inferred
from this description that the book is encyclopedic in form, or that it
has any of the dryness that is sometimes characteristic of encyclopedias.
The lectures which are here reprinted could not fail to have been both
informing and exceptionally interesting to hear; and they must have
been of much everyday value for the students in the commerce and
social-studies courses at Birmingham to whom they were first addressed.

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No. 1] REVIEWS 159

They certainly have both of these characteristics as now embodied in
the printed volume.

In the chapter on the development of industrial law, Mr. Tillyard
brings out a fact long familiar to students of the political history of
England, and in particular to students of the extensions of the parlia-
mentary franchise in 1832, 1867 and 1884-85, and of the beneficent
social and economic reforms that came in the train of these three steps
towards democracy. This is the paucity of industrial statute law before
the extension of the franchise in 1867. ‘The first edition of Smith’s
Law of Master and Servant was published in 1852. It was, as Mr.
Tillyard recalls, mostly devoted to an exposition of the principles of
common law ; and in 1858, when Stephen’s Commentaries were pub-
lished, they contained only a short chapter on Master and Servant, ‘ the
contents of which,” as Mr. Tillyard notes, “are substantially the same
as in the chapter penned by Blackstone himself nearly a century earlier.”

Sixty of the statutes with which Mr. Tillyard is concerned were en-
acted after 1867. He dates the beginning of the period of modern
industrial law at 1867 for three reasons. ‘The first is that in that year
the parliamentary franchise was extended to wage earners, and hence-
forward artisans had some voice in legislating for their own class. The
second reason is that by Lord Elcho’s act regulating procedure in the
settlement of disputes between employers and employed, imprisonment
for breach of contract of service by an individual workman was abol-
ished, with one exception, and the inferior status of the workman in
disputes came to an end. The third reason for fixing 1867 as the be-
ginning of the new era in industrial law is that in that year, growing out
of the rattening outrages in the cutlery industry at Sheffield, a royal
commission was appointed, and resulting from its work there was enacted
at Westminster the charter of modern trade unionism—the Trade-Union
Act of 1871.

Before 1867 no general principles are discernible in English industrial
law. ‘The law as to disputes between master and workman was based on
the inferior status of the workman. He went to jail for breach of con-
tract ; while for an employer who broke a contract there was only such
monetary penalty as a bench of magistrates, most of them employers
themselves, thought fit to impose. ‘The law as to combinations—the
act of 1825—nominally put employers and employees on an equal basis.
In practice it allowed no effective combination to workmen. In the law
courts, in the era that ended in 1867, judges and magistrates prided
themselves on the protection they gave to the workmen’s right “of the
exertion of his own personal strength and skill in the full enjoyment of

160 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

his own free will, altogether unshackled by the control or dictates of
his fellow workmen.” But while judges and magistrates regarded a
workman as a person “ who voluntarily undertook to run all the ordinary
risks of his service, including the risk of negligence upon the part of a
fellow servant,” Parliament from at least as early as the Truck Act of
1831 had assumed, and rightly assumed, that he could not even secure
his own wages in cash without special legislation.

All this has been changed since 1867. Principles are now discernible
in the English industrial code, as it was enacted between 1867 and 1915.
The inferior status of the workman has disappeared in arbitrations as
well as in the law courts. There has come a recognition of the eco-
nomic weakness of some sections of the wage-earning class, and an
admission, based on this, of the right of the state to intervene to remedy
evils resulting from this inequality of economic power. Industry has
been compelled to carry the burden of its casualties ; and by minimum-
wage legislation Parliament has declared that an industry which does
not pay its work people a living wage is parasitic and is not bearing the
whole cost of production.

Much that is of importance to an understanding of industrial condi-
tions, as they developed in England from 1867 to 1915, is brought out
in Mr. Tillyard’s numerous observations of the actual working of the
industrial code. From these, among other things, it can be learned
that in some aspects labor conditions in England are approximating
conditions in the United States. The number of industries is growing
in which workmen are no longer required to give a week or a fortnight’s
notice before leaving their employment ; and Mr. Tillyard, in the section
of his book dealing with contracts, in particular with contracts made on
behalf of infants, states that contracts of apprenticeship are nowadays
almost obsolete, This is good news. The wonder is that the old
apprenticeship indenture survived in England as long as it did. The
system on which it was based, even in the old days of small industries,
was one which often exploited the boy and his parents for the advan-
tage of the employer; and when industries reached the factory stage,
and the man to whom a boy was apprenticed could no longer personally
teach him his trade or craft, there was no equitable or social reason for
the continuance of indentured apprenticeship extending over six or
seven years. With the coming of the factory stage of industry oppor-
tunities and facilities for learning a trade were all that could be offered
apprentices ; and a seven years’ term, with the small rates of pay of the
old apprenticeship system, was too much to be exacted for the privilege
of these opportunities and facilities.

REVIEWS

No. 1] 161

Mr. Tillyard’s book will make its strongest appeal to men and women
in this country who are interested in comparative labor legislation. To
them, by reason of its comprehensiveness as well as by its arrangement
and lucidity, it will be of great service. But it is also a book that can
not well be overlooked by students of English political and social history.

EDWARD PorRITT.

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT.

Londres et les Ouvriers de Londres. By D. PASQUET. Paris,
Armand Colin, 1914.—764 pp.

Students of the history of the French Revolution have at their dis-
posal a gossipy survey of Paris in the old régime, the Zad/eau de Paris
of Mercier, which in its easy-going way furnishes much information
concerning the society of the city of the revolution. Should there be
a revolution in England, even such a révolution a 1’ Anglaise as Lloyd
George is capable of developing, this volume of Dr. Pasquet will furnish
to the readers of the future an adequate as well as an interesting guide
to the conditions of life of the majority of Londoners in the old régime.

The survey by Booth, epoch-making as it was, is now out of date and
was always too elaborate for common use. Here we have in a single
volume—a large one it is true, but not unwieldly—a scholarly work,
including deft historical sketches, statistical and economic sections and
detailed analysis of the poverty involved in the seasonal trades. There
is little, if anything, new in these statements of the conditions of the
working class; the blue-books and the publications of the County
Council, as well as a goodly series of monographs (all of which are
classified in Dr. Pasquet’s excellent bibliography), are easily accessible.
But no one has digested this material and brought to the presentation
of the whole so clear an eye or so human a touch as Dr. Pasquet.
There is a life-like quality in such scenes as that at the opening of the
fourth book (page 525) of London on Sunday morning; the critic
does not fail to understand the peculiar attitude of the English toward
religion. One gets a better view of the whole situation here than from
Booth’s intensive survey. The description of the board school in the
East End (page 593) is a model of sympathetic interpretation. There
is no supercilious criticism of the teacher of household arts whose
specialty is steak pies “dans lequels triomphe la cuisiniére anglaise ;””
on the contrary, the common-sense of the teacher who criticizes the
antique curriculum having no relation to the problems of daily life and
the gay play of the pupils, leads to an appreciation such as this :

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162 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

On y voit surtout combien les enfants aiment leur école, et 4 quel point
cette école est pour eux une chose vivante; ils ont pour cette pauvre
batisse noiratre la méme affection qu’un étudiant de Magdalen a pour son
beau collége. On ne saurait dire quel’oeuvre du Bureau des Ecoles et du
Conseil de Comité ait été vaine, méme si elle n’avait réussi qu’a inspirer de
tels sentiments aux petits enfants de Clerkenwell.

The statistical survey is drawn from official sources, and although the
maps of the density of population, of occupations, disease, communi-
cations etc., are clearly drawn and useful, they are not more than might
be expected from one who has summarized the abundant material of
this kind. ‘The particular value of the book is its general character,
including so many aspects of the life and history of London, its object-
ivity, and its genuine scholarship.

J. T. SHOTWELL.

The History and Economics of Indian Famines. By A. LOVE-
pay. London, G. Bell and Sons, Limited, 1914.—xi, 164 pp.

Literature on Indian economics is very meager, and what little there
is has been contributed mostly by Anglo-Indian and foreign writers,
who have scarcely perceived the problems in their true perspective.
Owing either to the inherent difficulty of understanding another people,
or to men’s unfitness to pass judgment concerning matters in which
they are directly interested, most of these writers have been led astray
by one consideration or another. Hence there has been between
them and native thinkers little of that consensus of opinion which
is a condition precedent to the adoption of active measures for the
solution of India’s economic problems. Under such conditions, with
the government of India at last awake to the duty of preventing famines
and encouraging the economic development of the country, Mr. Love-
day’s little volume is specially timely.

The first three of the five chapters give a brief survey of famines
before and after the coming of the East India Company. Chapter
four treats of the relief organizations established by the government,
and chapter five, the most important in the book, gives place to wider
economic considerations. Without partisan spirit it seeks the real
causes of famines and suggests remedies. One result of the industrial
revolution in England, the author shows, was the destruction of Indian
industries and the consequent pressure of the industrial population
upon agriculture. The effect of drought on the overcrowded agricul-
tural industry is famine. Mr. Loveday is of the opinion that the in-

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No. 1] REVIEWS 163

security and uncertainty of the policy of land tenure and revenue take
away all incentive for agricultural improvement. In consequence the
Indian farmer has been left resourceless to withstand the incidence of
drought or famine.

The author therefore believes, not in relief operations, but in the
development of economic resources in order to prevent future famines.
‘« Once it is realized that not merely agriculture, but the whole econo-
mic welfare of the land is endangered by droughts, measures will be
adopted to strengthen and protect the whole economic structure of
society, and these measures will be active, not negative ; creative, not
defensive’? (pages 133, 134). In considering the general economic
development Mr. Loveday necessarily faces the problem of protection.
Professor Lees Smith’s argument against protection for India he refutes
thus :

The lack of initiative on the part of the people is the natural outcome of
the disappearance of their means of livelihood. It is a misconception of
the doctrine of the survival of the fittest merely to view with complaisance
the deaths of those that succumb. It is a misconception of the doctrine of
free trade merely to refuse to regulate industrial development [pages 128,

129].

Unlike Prof. Lees Smith, Mr. Loveday takes a correct view of native
‘¢ initiative ’’ in investing capital where there is a reasonable prospect
of security, gain and equal competition. Instead of railing against the
Indian laborer without studying his case, the author draws a true pict-
ure of him, showing that the bureaucratic government has done little or
nothing to improve conditions of work or facilities for technical educa-
tion. Given decent conditions and education, he asserts that the lab-
orer is perfectly willing to work and is efficient enough. He thus
brings to the notice of the bureaucracy an opportunity to do justice to
the Indian people. Such action would result in the ultimate well-being
of India and England alike.

The treatise is notably free from prejudice. Its summary discussion
of all famines in India since remote times and its concise bibliography
are highly useful. As to its lack of statistical data the author says:
‘* Comparatively slight use has been made of statistics, because the
accuracy of older records and estimates becomes more and more ques-
tionable as history recedes into the dimmer light of the past” (page viii).

R. R. Pawar.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

164 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (Vor. XXXII

Customary Acres and Their Historical Importance. By FRED-
ERICK SEEBOHM. New York, Longmans, Green and Company,

1914.—xlli, 274 pp.

These unfinished essays are a labyrinth of detail. Nowhere in the
text or in a table are the facts gathered together so as to be easily
comprehensible, and the cautious inferences expressed by the author
are evidently but a small! portion of what was in his mind. The prom-
ised chapter showing ‘‘ how far further light has been shed by the facts
examined upon the position of the open-field system of husbandry as
an important factor in economic history,” was never written.

It will be remembered that Dr. Seebohm held the view that the
manor could not have been derived from the tribal systems of land-
holding in Britain, but was the result of conquest. The first part of
this volume is devoted to the presentation of evidence of continuity
between tribal agriculture and the village community. Whatever
changes conquest made in the organization, the ancient system of agri-
culture was retained in part, at least. The eight-ox plow team serves
as the connecting link between the two systems.

The most striking fact established in the second part of the book is
the identity of the old English mile and the Gallic Zuga. Seventeenth-
century itineraries and old mile-stones show that the itinerary measure
of ancient Britain was the same as that of ancient Gaul. Great em-
phasis is also given to the study of a group of customary acres which
is traced through Britain and Armorica back to the plains of the Danube,
and by another route into the Po Valley. The mathematical relation
between these acres is such as to constitute evidence for some sort of
historical connection between the peoples who settled these regions.
The Armorican and British acres are equal in area but different in form.
No explanation of this difference is given.

The book abounds in metrological facts whose historical signifi-
cance, if they have any, is not explained. For instance, the square of
the furrow of the Breton arfen¢ in its normal form of 1x5 contains 9
Egytian iets. This furrow is, moreover, equal to one-tenth of one-half
of the diagonal of the square euga. The furrows of most of the custom-
ary acres are even divisions of the /euga or of the diagonal of the square
leuga. Some of these facts are undoubtedly important. It remains
for a competent student to organize and interpret this collection of
material before its historical value can be known.

HARRIETT BRADLEY.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

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No. 1] REVIEWS @ 165

The Social Problem, A Constructive Analysis. By CHARLES
A. Ellwood. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1915.—xii,

255 PP-

The social problem, as conceived by Professor Ellwood, is the prob-
lem of the relations of men to one another. All problems arising out
of human association are interdependent, and in all their complexity
there is a fundamental unity. As the elements of the problem are
continually changing, each generation must face it anew. For our
generation the responsibility is unusually heavy, for not only has the
essential rottenness of some of the bases of our civilization been exposed
by the great convulsion in Europe, but through the development of
the social sciences we are in a position to reach a rational solution of
the problem. The future course of civilization is not predetermined,
and even a reversion to barbarism is within the bounds of possibility.

The social problem cannot be stated in the terms of any one set of
factors, whether physical, economic, or spiritual, and an attempt to
ignore or subordinate any of the fundamental elements will lead to
inadequate programs of social readjustment. First of all, the historical
elements must be taken into account. Western civilization has inher-
ited its basic traditions from antagonistic cultures of the past. Its
religious and ethical tradition is of Hebrew origin, its philosophic and
esthetic tradition is Greek, its legal and political tradition is the out-
growth of Roman imperialism, and its tradition of personal liberty is a
heritage from the ancient Teutons. In addition to the traditional ele-
ments, the problem involves the physical and biological elements,
which have come into being with the development of modern science ;
the economic elements, which have become more numerous and more
vital with the development of capitalism ; and the spiritual and ideal
elements growing out of the social religion and humanitarianism of the
nineteenth century.

The solution of the problem must come through the education of
the young ; transformation of the subjective environment of ideals and
values in society ; and the development of a well-balanced program of
social progress. Practically, the solution depends upon the finding
and training of wise and far-seeing leaders.

Professor Ellwood does not attempt to elaborate a program of social
readjustment. He simply calls attention to the unity of the social
problem and suggests how sociology may aid in its solution.

G. B. L, ARNER.

New York.

BOOK NOTES

In 1902, the Department of Economics and Sociology of the Car-
negie Institution outlined its work, and a little later initiated the re-
searches for the Contributions to American Economic History. Of
the twelve divisions into which this topic was apportioned, the eighth,
under the editorship of Professor Commons, completed its work a few
years ago and published eleven volumes of the Documentary History
of American Industrial Society. Within the past twelve months two
other divisions have completed their task. Zhe History of Domestic
and Foreign Commerce of the United States has appeared in two vol-
umes (Washington, Carnegie Institution, 1915 ; 363, 398 pp.) under
the authorship of Emory R. Johnson, T. W. Van Metre, G. G. Hueb-
ner, and D. S. Hanchet. Professor Johnson is responsible for part i
(with the exception of a few chapters) dealing with American com-
merce to 1789; Dr. Van Metre has written the history of the internal
commerce of the United States, of the coastwide trade, and of the
fisheries; Mr. Huebner has contributed the section on the foreign
trade of the United States since 1789 ; and Mr. Hanchet is responsi-
ble for the chapters dealing with government aid and commercial pol-
icy. The division on manufactures presents the first half of its results
in a volume by Victor S. Clark, on the History of Manufactures in the
United States, 1607-1860 (Washington, Carnegie Institution, 1916 ;
675 pp.). In each case there is an introductory note by the general
editor, Professor Farnam. It is pleasant to be able to say that these
publications maintain the high level set by the volumes that have pre-
viously appeared. The investigations have been thorough, and the
conclusions—although perhaps by no means of startling novelty—are
based upon a wealth of documentary material, so that they will without
doubt long remain the authoritative record of the subjects under dis-
cussion. The books are in every way a credit to American scholarship.
The authors, the editor, and the Institution, are to be congratulated
upon the success that has been achieved.

While Professor H. Stanley Jevons was still filling the chair of eco-
nomics and political science at the University College of South Wales
and Monmouthshire, he completed a book on the British Coal Trade
(New York, E. P. Dutton, 1915 ; 876 pp.). The great work of
his father, W. Stanley Jevons, on Zhe Coal Question, appeared in

166

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BOOK NOTES 167

1865, and was concerned primarily with the problem of the probable
exhaustion of the mines. The present work is intended to be a more
popular account of the coal-mining industry and the coal trade asa
whole. The author deals fully with the various economic and social
aspects of the problem. It is only in the later chapters that he takes
up the questions that had been discussed by his distinguished father.
Although he looks forward to the not distant exhaustion of the coal
fields, his estimates are somewhat different. In fifty years he thinks
coal prices will rise appreciably ; in one hundred years the price will
be so high as to lead to a considerable diminution in relative consump-
tion ; in two hundred years the annual output will have reached its
maximum. The national capital can, however, be conserved partly by
the government’s taking over the coal] mines as well as the railways,
partly by the fostering of scientific research by the state. Even when
present resources have been exhausted, the world will still possess vast
possibilities in utilizing the tides and the heat of the sun. When that
time comes, Mr. Jevons thinks that England will have to depend upon
the control of the great factories and plantations then to be found in
the tropics. Upon the political possibilities connected with this fore-
cast of the economic situation, the author does not dwell. For those,
however, who are more interested in the present than in the distant
future, Mr. Jevons’ book will prove to be both illuminating and
interesting.

The recent history of the labor situation on the British docks is
treated in two notable monographs. Mr. R. Williams, the divisional
officer for the northwestern division of labor exchanges and unemploy-
ment insurance, has issued, under the auspices of the Liverpool Eco-
nomic and Statistical Society, a book on Zhe First Year’s Work of the
Liverpool Dock Scheme (London, P. S. King, 1914; 192 pp.) ; and
Mr. H. A. Mess has published, under the auspices of the Ratan Tata
Foundation, a more general work on Casual Labour on the Docks
(London, Bell and Sons, 1916; 147 pp.). Mr. Williams thinks that
the Liverpool scheme has worked fairly well, but concludes that a great
improvement might be effected if the employers formed a company
to supply the casual labor reserve by pooling their casual labor demand
and letting the reserve out at a wage slightly in excess of that paid to
the men. Mr. Mess calls attention to the fact that neither registration
nor the system of ‘‘ surplus stands” has realized the hopes of the pro-
moters of these plans, and that the Port of London authority, consti-
tuted in 1908 to deal with casual labor, has done virtually nothing
except for its direct employees. He discusses some of the objections

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168 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL. XXXII

attaching to the problem of decasualization and believes that one of
the first conditions of any improvement lies in the creation of a better
spirit between employer and employee. He is filled with great mis-
givings as to the effects of peace on the entire situation. The book is
more interesting as a record of past experiments than as a real contri-
bution to a solution.

Under the title, Zhe State as Manufacturer and Trader (London,
T. Fisher Unwin, Limited, 1916; ix, 282 pp.), Mr. A. W. Madsen
examines the commercial, industrial and fiscal results of government
tobacco monopolies. He deals fully with the situation in France and
less fully with the monopolies in Italy, Austria, Japan, and Spain; he
adds an interesting chapter on the recent monopoly legislation in
Sweden. The author is a distinct opponent of the tobacco monopoly
and seeks every opportunity to point out the shortcomings of the sys-
tem ; but he finds it a little difficult to explain why Sweden, after a
thorough examination of the whole situation, decided in 1915 to
establish a government monopoly. The book is to be welcomed as
the first publication in English dealing with this important topic.

Die Deutsche Volkswirtschaft im Kriege (Tibingen, J. C. B. Mohr,
1915; 75 pp.), by Carl Johannes Fuchs, briefly but clearly outlines
the numerous measures which have been taken, not only by the various
German governments, but also by commercial and industrial organiza-
tions and by individuals for the mobilization of the economic resources
of the empire in the present great conflict. He shows that, in spite
of Germany’s military ‘‘ preparedness,’’ proposals by experts looking
to the economic organization of the empire in time of war were, as
late as May 1914, rejected by the imperial Department of the Interior
on the ground that the adoption of such a scheme would cause un-
necessary anxiety at home and be open to misinterpretation abroad.
When Dr. Fuchs’s brochure was published, the problem of the distri-
bution and use of foodstuffs had not been dealt with so effectively as
has since been done ; but developments have taken place along the
lines of his forecasts. Looking upon the present measures of eco-
nomic mobilization as an emergent extension of the power of eminent
domain and not as a manifestation of a tendency toward state social-
ism, he believes that their duration will be transitory and that their
only effect after the war will be indirect. He conjecturally discusses
the problems of reconstruction which will confront the empire after
the conflict is ended, and supplements his text with substantial notes
which indicate an enormously increasing bibliography of his subject.
With the beginning of 1916, two interesting additions were made to

No. 1] BOOK NOTES 169

the periodical literature of political science. The Chinese Social and
Political Science Review appeared in April 1916, as the first number
of a quarterly review published by the Chinese Political Science As-
sociation of Peking, under the editorship of Hawkling L. Yen, a doctor
of philosophy of Columbia University. The idea of the association,
which held its first meeting in December 1915, is due to Minister
Paul S. Reinsch. With the exception of two articles by Minister
Reinsch and Professor Willoughby, all the contributions, divided almost
equally between economics and politics, are by Chinese authors. The
department of News and Notes will be of value to American students.

The other magazine is the /ndian Journal of Economics, issued
quarterly by the University of Allahabad, under the editorship of Pro-
fessor H. Stanley Jevons. In the first number, which appeared in
January 1916, we are told that the purpose of the journal is to provide
a medium for the publication of articles on Indian economics by authors
of academic standing or authoritative position, to furnish a vehicle of
publication for original investigations made by the professors and ad-
vanced students in the economics department of the university, and to
perform a public service by disseminating information about economic
activities of other countries. The /ourna/ is of a distinctively high
class and forms a welcome addition to the list of scientific periodicals
on the subject.

In Holders of Railroad Bonds and Notes, Their Rights and Remedies
(New York, E. P. Dutton and Company, 1916; xvi, 419 pp.), Louis
Heft considers the legal aspect of corporation finance and investment
as related to railroads. The capitalist committing his funds to an en-
terprise has to consider the earning power and assets of the corporation,
as well as the investment contract he is making in relation to these
earnings and assets. Mr. Heft segregates from the general subject of
railroad finance the topic of the investment contract, and particularly
of possible action in the event of failure. His successive chapters deal
with rights and remedies with relation to: (1) the various kinds of
railroad bonds and notes; (2) the mortgage or deed of trust; (3)
the trusteeship ; (4) foreclosing the mortgage or otherwise realizing on
the security; (5) the receivership of the railroad company; (6) the
assets of the insolvent railroad company ; (7) the other creditors; and
(8) the reorganization of the railroad company. Writing of legal
matters in a manner to be understood by a layman, the author has per-
formed a valuable service ; for, the business man who has learned a little
about the law is the one who has the most wholesome respect for the
importance of legal advice. As every business transaction has its legal

170 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoL.. XXXII

side, the law presents one cross-section of business just as accounting
presents another, These cross-sections enable the student of business
to gain an understanding of the substance of the thing. All writing on
the subject of business is still pioneer work. Though Mr. Heft has had
the advantage of writing in that business territory which has been sur-
veyed, namely, the law, yet his task of changing the method of the
record from one which a lawyer can interpret to one which a layman
can read is a difficult one. Despite the imperfections inevitable in
such relatively new work, the volume has substance.

A sensible and matter-of-fact although not brilliant work is that of
Fred L. Holmes on Regulation of Railroads and Public Utilities of
Wisconsin (New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1915 ; 375 pp.).
The author has made an analysis of most of the decisions of the Wis-
consin Railroad Commission, which was created in 1905 and whose
powers were extended in 1907 to light, water, heat, telephone and
telegraph companies, in 1911 to toll bridges, and in 1915 to jitneys.
The book contains a plain unvarnished account of the achievements
of the commission. Although it is neither critical nor highly sug-
gestive, it will serve a useful purpose as a presentation of the facts.

It is not only in the United States that the textbook on economics
flourishes. Until recently, most of the French textbooks on the subject
were written by members of the classical school and, with the one out-
standing exception of Gide’s, they were sadly lacking in their apprecia-
tion of the new spirit that has come over economic science. This re-
proach cannot be addressed to the recent work of Professor Bertrand
Nogaro of the University of Caen, entitled Ziéments d@’ Economie Poli-
tigue (Paris, Giard et Briere, 1913-14; two volumes: 378, 291 pp.).
M. Nogaro is familiar with the recent German and American literature,
and although he follows the time-honored classification, his discussion
is quite up to date. It is, moreover, marked by the inimitable clarity
and grace of style which are so characteristic of the French writers.

A useful addition to Ginn’s Selections and Documents in Economics
is Selected Writings in Rural Economics (Ginn & Company, n.d.
[1916] ;974pp.), compiled by Professor T. N. Carver. The book deals
with general principles, agricultural history, land tenure, agricultural
labor, the farmer’s business, agrarian movements, rural organization,
and marketing and agricultural policy. Almost all of the contributions
are by American authors, with the exception of a few selections on
European history, ownership and labor conditions. Perhaps the least
successful part of the book is that which deals with American agricul-
tural history.

me’

No. 1] BOOK NOTES 171

An unpretentious but clear description of the Lumdber Industry (New
York, The Ronald Press, 1914 ; 104 pp.), is the monograph under that
title written by R. S. Kellogg, the secretary of the Northern Hemlock
and Hardwood Manufacturers Association. In successive chapters
we have a straightforward description of the raw material and the
operations of logging, manufacture and marketing, as well as a study
of cost keeping, and of the tendencies of the industry. Although
intended primarily for the practical man, it will be of interest also to
the economic student.

In a sumptuous reprint from the Proceedings of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, Mr. Andrew McFarland Davis dis-
cusses in an interesting way Certain Old Chinese Notes or Chinese
Paper Money (Boston, C. E. Goodspeed and Company, 1915; xi,
pp. 245-286). He describes, with excellent photostats, various spec-
imens of Chinese paper money from the seventh, ninth, twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. In a few cases he has been aided by a Chinese
scholar, but he tells us frankly that many of the problems which he
raises can be answered only by the Chinese experts themselves. Until
such work becomes available, however, Mr. Davis’ contribution will
provide a serviceable stop-gap.

Professor C. C. Plehn’s little book on Government Finance in the
United States (Chicago, A. C. McClurg and Company, 1915 ; 166 pp.)
is one of the National Social Science series, edited by President McVey.
It is an attempt to describe in a very brief and popular way the fiscal
conditions of the United States, and is well calculated to arouse an in-
telligent interest in the subject among those who know very little of it.

Mr. Louis F. Post’s Zaxation of Land Values (Indianapolis, Bobbs
Merrill Company, n. d. [1915] 179 pp.) is the fifth edition, under a
new title, of his Outlines of Lectures on the Single Tax, published
originally in 1894. There is nothing new in the book ; but it presents
in a clear and attractive way the familiar doctrines of the sect.

“To beat the Canadian farmer into a clear conception of how he is
on every hand paying someone to take from him the greater part of his
produce,” is the aim of Zhe Farmer and the Interests: A Study in
Parasitism (Toronto, The Macmillan Company, Limited, 1916; 162
pp-), whose author writes under the mom-de-p/ume of Clarus Ager.
Emphatic language is characteristic of the book, which is none the less
a fair presentation of the political and economic conditions under which
Canadian farmers—and in particular the grain growers of Manitoba,
Saskatchewan and Alberta—carry on their business, and also of the
attitude of the Canadian farmer toward Dominion politics. The old

172 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY [VoLt. XXXII

claim that Canada was an inexpensive country to live in is no longer
made. In some places in Canada the cost of living today is even
higher than in the United States; and on no part of the Canadian
people does the forty-per-cent tariff fall with greater weight than on
the grain growers of the western provinces. As Clarus Ager shows, the
farmer is caught by the Canadian national policy coming and going.
The market in which he can sell is restricted by this policy; the tariff
adds nothing to the price he obtains for his grain, most of which is ex-
ported overseas ; and he must either pay the duty on farm equipment
imported from the United States, or pay for made-in-Canada equipment
the price which the tariff enables the Canadian manufacturers to charge.
Railway rates are high ; the grain grower is also at a disadvantage under
the Canadian banking system, and he pays heavy toll to the middleman
and the retailer, because his supplies are usually furnished on long-time
credit. He is confronted with interests, such as banks, manufacturers,
and railway companies, admirably organized and always alert at Ottawa ;
while he and his fellows are divided in politics.

In German Legislation for the Occupied Territories of Belgium (The
Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1915 ; viii, 108 pp.), Charles Henry Hub-
erich, J. U. D., and Alexander Nicol-Speyer, J. U. D., have collected
the emergency measures dealing with the special order and economic
problems arising out of the war in the military area designated in the
title. While the Belgian codes and laws remain in force except so
far as they are abrogated by German legislation or are inconsistent
with the changed political conditions, yet the German government
has, in the exercise of its powers as military occupant, enacted a
number of ordinances and issued various proclamations and notices,
regulating the conditions growing out of the state of war, and provid-
ing for the supervision of business undertakings which might be con-
ducted in a manner inimical to German interests. The present vol-
ume contains all the measures so promulgated down to January 1915.

From the same publisher we have also a compilation entitled Con-
ventions and Declarations between the Powers concerning War, Arbi-
tration and Neutrality (The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, t915). It
contains the Declaration of Paris of 1856, the Declaration of St.
Petersburg of 1868, the Declarations of The Hague of 1899 relating
to projectiles diffusing deleterious gases and to expanding bullets, the
Geneva (Red Cross) Convention of 1906, various conventions and
declarations made at the Second Peace Conference at The Hague
(1907), and the Declaration of London of 1909. All these documents
are given in English, French and German; but, curiously enough,
the volume has neither index nor paging.

No. 1] BOOK NOTES 173

The issue of Sel/’s World’s Press (London, Sells Limited, 1915 ;
xiv, 567 pp.) for 1914-1915, edited by Hubert W. Peet), was delayed
for some months by the war. Like all the issues for the last twenty-five
years, it includes not only remarkably well-arranged lists of all news-
papers and periodicals published in the British Empire, but also a rec-
ord of the more important changes and developments in the newspaper
world of the empire, brief histories of press-world institutions, a news-
paper-world Who’s Who, and a series of articles on contemporary
newspaper-world conditions and problems. ‘The most interesting arti-
cles in this series are concerned with changes in the newspaper world
of the United Kingdom brought about by the war. Quite a number of
newspapers succumbed in the early months of the war, including two
labor daily newspapers, and the Zhe London Budget, which had a
wide circulation among the laboring population of rural England.
One of the new newspaper-world institutions brought into existence
by the war is the Press Representatives Committee at the headquarters
of the censors of the press in London. A detailed description of the
censorship bureau—the first of its kind in England—which was organ-
ized within a week after war was declared, is written by Mr. Henry J.
B. Steele, honorary secretary of the Press Representatives Commit-
tee. Another special literary feature of the 1914-1915 issue of the
World’s Press that has value for professors and students in the
thirty or forty schools of journalism in this country is the bibliography
of journalism, a guide to books of the newspaper world. This feature,
first introduced in 1907, and continued in 1910 and 1912, has in the
current issue been greatly extended, and from all appearances it is as
inclusive as a compiler working with zealous industry and discretion at
the library at the British Museum could make it. It begins at 1821
and includes books as recent as 1914, listing nearly four hundred titles
in its several subdivisions—historical, biographical, technical and legal.

Qui a provogué la conflagration européenne? (Rio de Janeiro,
1915; 53 pp.) is the title of a pamphlet in which an eminent Brazilian
publicist, Dr. Sa Vianna, professor in the Faculty of Juridical and
Social Sciences of Rio de Janeiro, in opening his course on Public
International Law, in 1915, discusses the causes of the European con-
flict and the responsibility for bringing it on. Reviewing the record
as found in the correspondence published by the various belligerent
governments, he maintains that the burden rests upon the Central
Powers and particularly upon Germany. He condemns the Austrian
attitude towards Serbia, and affirms that, as for Germany, the Russian
mobilization was only an excuse. The real cause he finds in ‘‘ Pan-

174 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY (VoL. XXXII

Germanism, the dream of universal empire, the fantasy of Charlemagne,
the delirium of Charles V, the arrogance of Napoleon, the sanguinary
folly of William.’’ Far from being enamored of the Roman maxim,
“‘ If you wish for peace prepare for war,’’ Dr. Sa Vianna believes that
the pitch to which military preparation had been carried in Europe
insured the breaking-out of a conflict sooner or later ; but he declares
that the great crime is not so much the fact that war was not avoided,
as the spirit in which it was premeditated and the manner in which it
has been carried on by the powers to which he imputes its precipitation.

Already most persons have only a hazy recollection of the events that
quickly followed one another in the world of finance at the end of
July and early in August 1914. It is the object of War and Lombard
Street (New York, E. P. Dutton and Company, 1915 ; viii, 171 pp.)
to give an outline of what took place in financial London during those
momentous days. ‘The author is M. Hartley Withers. The subjects
with which he deals are more or less technical, but he shows great
facility in explaining them so that they can be readily comprehended
by the average reader. Owing to London’s position as the money-center
of the world, the problem was external as well as internal. What
happened bore striking testimony to the City’s financial strength. In
the course of his review the author discusses the mechanism of ex-
change, the relief given to the acceptors of bills, the issue of finance
bills, and the moratorium and the measures by which it was put into
effect. He evidently feels much solicitude regarding the future work-
ings of the provisions of the Currency and Bank-Notes Act of 1914,
under which the government has been issuing its own paper money.
This ‘‘ new departure,” so susceptible of abuse, will, he thinks ‘‘ have
to be watched over and regulated very carefully,” in order that the
government may not ‘‘ go on merrily paying its way in pieces of paper,
and inflating the currency to any extent that it pleases.”

Mr. Daniel Chauncey Brewer’s Rights and Duties of Neutrals (New
York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916; ix, 260 pp.) is a readable discussion
of principles and practices relative to the rights and duties of neutrals.
The common-sense of the author and his general grasp of the practical
bearing and relative importance of the question he is discussing make
up, toa certain degree, for his evident lack of scientific training and
familiarity with juridical principles. For instance, in chapter xxi on
“‘unneutral service”’ he says not one word about unneutral service ;
instead he discusses violations of neutrality. Mr. Brewer well points
out the necessity of preparing to defend our rights “to compel peace
as soldier kings have compelled war.”’ International law, he believes,

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No. 1] BOOK NOTES 175

will never assume “ the position which belongs to it, nor non-belligerent
nations secure their rights, until neutrals are themselves prepared single-
handed or in company to join battle in vindication of principles to
which they are committed.”

The Diplomacy of the War of 1812 (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins
Press, 1915;.X, 494 pp.), by Frank A. Updyke, Professor of
Political Science at Dartmouth College, embodies the Albert Shaw lec-
tures on diplomatic history at Johns Hopkins University in 1914.
It is material to observe that the title of the volume is, as the author
points out, somewhat broader than the contents, since the work is in
effect confined to Anglo-American relations, with special reference to
the negotiations leading to the signing of the Treaty of Ghent. The
author has not only diligently explored the printed sources, but has had
access to the manuscript archives of the Department of State at Wash-
ington and also of the British Foreign Office. His use of the sources
has been full and painstaking, and his labors are in that particular to
be highly commended. But, as is the case with so much of our current
historical writing, fidelity is secured more by the process of transcrip-
tion than by the thorough assimilation and mastery of the subject-
matter and the presentation of the essential points with clear and per-
spicuous brevity. As a result the average reader is likely to become
lost in the long succession of statements that Mr. Adams said thus and
so, that Lord Somebody then answered him to this or that effect, and
so on, in endless compilatory succession, with scarcely any effort on
the part of the writer to bring the essential issues into vivid and im-
pressive relief. These remarks are by no means exceptionally or pe-
culiarly applicable to the present work, whose merits deserve distinct
acknowledgment. ‘They apply to a great part of our present historical
‘¢ output,” which, like the multiplication of unnecessarily prolix judicial
opinions, may now and then betray the reader into the expression,
indiscreet though it be, of a desire for condensation and clarity. It
would be a great gain if we could enlarge our collection of true source-
material by the more extensive publication of original text, and thus
pave the way for briefer commentaries.

A brief account of the relations between the United States and Great
Britain since the signing of the Treaty of Ghent in 1814 is given in
One Hundred Years of Peace (New York, The Macmillan Com-
pany, 1913; vii, 136 pp.), by Henry Cabot Lodge. In reality the
hundred years of peace have, as appears by the narrative, been any-
thing but tranquil. The War of 1812 had barely closed when diplo-
matic controversies began again to spring up. Besides, almost or quite

176 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY

one-fourth of the volume is devoted to an exemplification of the style
of detraction and abuse which Southey, Sydney Smith, Dickens and
other English writers indulged toward things American. The feeling
thus engendered had by no means disappeared when the Civil War
broke out in the United States, only to be followed by words and by
acts, such as the fitting-out of Confederate cruisers in British ports,
which again carried resentment to a dangerous pitch. In saying that,
after the questions growing out of the Civil War were settled, there was
no ‘‘ clash”’ between the two countries till the ‘*‘ English invasion of
the Monroe Doctrine” in the case of the Venezuelan boundary, the
author either overlooks the fisheries dispute of 1886-88, or else con-
siders it less serious than it was then generally believed to be.
‘‘ England was surprised, and operators in the stock market were
greatly annoyed,’’ by President Cleveland’s message on the Venezuelan
boundary, it is stated, but, ‘* however much Wall Street might cry
out,’’ the President ‘‘ had the country with him.’’ That the effects of
the panic were, however, more serious than a mere flurry among stock
gamblers, may be inferred from the public appeal immediately after-
wards made by President Cleveland for the replenishment of the gold
reserve. Moreover, the imputation that the award eventually made
by the tribunal of arbitration at Paris on the boundary question was a
diplomatic compromise and not a judgment based upon the evidence
will not by any means be unanimously or unreservedly accepted by
those who are acquainted with the law and the facts of the case. But
it is no doubt true, as the volume indicates, that the attitude of Great
Britain towards the United States during the ten years following the
Venezuelan incident was more conciliatory than during the preceding
decade. This circumstance is duly emphasized as an augury of con-
tinued peace and friendship.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of In-
ternational Law, has issued (New York, Oxford University Press, 1915 ;
Xxx, 303 pp.) an English version of the texts of Zhe Hague Conven-
tions and Declarations of 1899 and 1907, with tables of signatures,
ratifications, and adhesions of the various powers, and the texts of the
reservations. These translations reproduce the official translations of
the Department of State at Washington, ‘‘ except that a few obvious
reprints and occasional mistranslations have been corrected.” The
fact should not, however, be lost sight of, that the original text of the
various acts is the signed French text, which is the ultimate standard
of authority.